community – Beyond the Bite

By Dr. Johnny Johnson, American Fluoridation Society President

Quick! Answer the following questions within 30 seconds:

1. The patient in your chair goes into cardiac arrest. What is the first phone call you make?
2. What is the concentration of your preferred local anesthetic?
3. Is your community water fluoridated?
4. What is the recommended level of fluoride for community water fluoridation (CWF)?

I bet that the first two questions took you a split second to answer. The third question may have been just as quick. The fourth? Maybe quick, maybe not.

How can you be 100 percent sure that you are correct in your answers? Well, the Florida Dental Association (FDA) would like to introduce you to our new and outstanding fluoridation website: www.floridafluoridation.org!

As dentists, we are expected to be the experts in water fluoridation — and we should be. The proper level of fluoride in drinking water is critical in knocking out at least 25 percent of cavities that adults and children will ever get. It also reduces the severity of those cavities.

The FDA’s fluoridation website is the best website that I have seen anywhere in the U.S. — or in the world for that matter! I know because I have worked with many of you in protecting, restarting and/or initiating CWF in your communities. And we have been an awesome force in ensuring that all of our residents — rich or poor, regardless of age, race, ethnicity, level of education or access to dental care — continue to receive this safe and effective public health benefit.

There are many great resources for information on CWF. However, when it comes to concise information that is user-friendly and state-based, the FDA’s website is primo! The information is easy to find, concise and presented for both professionals and the public to use.

I challenge you to do these three things:

1. Immediately — right now! — find out what the fluoride level is in your community’s water.^1,2,3,4
2. Pull up the FDA’s water fluoridation website.
3. Hang up a poster on CWF in your office — please!

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. CWF is the best bang for the buck for everyone in our state to benefit from the cavity reductions without a single behavioral change.

If you have any questions, challenges or needs, the FDA and I are here to help you. No question is dumb; the only dumb question is the one not asked. We are here to serve you. Call on us. Thank you for fighting the GREAT fight.

Dr. Johnson is a pediatric dentist in Palm Harbor, Fla. and the president of the American Fluoridation Society. He can be reached at drjohnnyjohnson@gmail.com.

References:

¹ My Water’s Fluoride (annual water quality report)
² Dr. Johnny Johnson
³ Florida Department of Health
⁴ American Dental Association, American Fluoridation Society, Campaign for Dental Health

By Drew Eason, FDA Executive Director

The Florida Dental Association’s (FDA) staff is made up of a team of very caring folks. Several staff members got together and asked if the FDA staff could (voluntarily) “adopt” a family in need for the holidays, which is something they’ve done many times in the past. I thought it was a great idea and the team took it from there. They worked with a charity called Christmas Connection, which strives to meet the wishes and basic needs of underprivileged families from all religions, races and ethnic backgrounds in northwest Florida.

Here’s a little more information on our “adopted” family: They were brought to our attention from school guidance counselors. After receiving a phone call from a concerned neighbor, we learned that a 70-year-old grandmother in our community had just taken in her three grandchildren. It appears the father is in jail and the mother is unable to care for the boys. We understood that the grandmother lives in a mobile home and has given up her bed for the boys, so she now is sleeping on the floor. We called the grandmother and learned that the three boys have moved in with various family members over the years, as their parents came in and out of their lives. She said that she could not see the boys move around anymore and didn’t want them separated and placed in foster care, which was sure to happen. The boys came to her with nothing but the clothing on their backs. She is a retired school bus driver and lives on a small retirement and Social Security. She is doing the best that she can, but feeding and clothing three growing boys is depleting her financial resources. The school helped get clothing for the boys, which she was incredibly grateful for. She did, however, report that with limited income, there is little left for extras. Christmas would not be a possibility for the boys and it was breaking her heart. She is a sweet, soft-spoken lady with the goal of keeping this family together. She says that they didn’t ask for any of this, but have shown resiliency given the chaos in their life. She says that with God’s help, the boys have come a long way.

FDA staff stepped up to buy gifts the family requested, and anything left on the list was paid for via our “Dress Down for Charity” program. Simply put, most of the staff paid $20 to dress casually during December — and it certainly brought in a lot of extra money to put toward gifts for the family! The staff was able to do a great deal for the family, as you can see in some of the pictures! They bought a bike, clothes, toys, a comforter and much, much more! Our hope is that this will be a Christmas they will remember.