SASKATOON (Staff) – Saskatchewan’s dental health educators say they have proof that children’s teeth are getting worse, yet the statistics are not available.
The Saskatchewan government employs 24 people around the province as dental health educators. After the last two years of monitoring teeth, the dental educators say they have numbers that show declining dental health among children.
Health department spokesperson Roy Schneider said the educators’ information was not as comprehensive as was done previously and he did not know when or if the statistics would be released.
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Government data on tooth decay for ages six to 13 from 1974 to 1993 shows a steadily improving situation until a leveling off in 1988 for all age groups.
Neither the educating college of dentistry at the University of Saskatchewan, nor their professional group, the College of Dental Surgeons, have any recent statistics on decay.
U of S dental professor Jim Tynan says all the evidence from the western world shows there is a general decline since 1970 in the amount of tooth decay and that it is generally attributed to the “near-universal use of fluoride toothpaste.”
While he has not seen the numbers the dental educators have come up with, he suspects there is not more tooth decay but more instances of “untreated” decay.
