Scott D B
National Institute of Dental Research, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.
J Public Health Dent. 1996;56(5 Spec No):235-8. doi: 10.1111/j.1752-7325.1996.tb02444.x.
This paper reviews the scientific events culminating in the fluoridation of communal water supplies. Dental and medical studies completed by 1942 had established the safety and benefits of exposure to drinking water naturally containing fluoride. Researchers and public health workers concluded that it was possible to test the hypothesis that the dental benefits attained where fluoride levels around 1 ppm occurred naturally in drinking water could be safely replicated in low-fluoride areas by raising the level to this optimal concentration. Grand Rapids became the first test site and by the time the demonstration ended in 1959, around 40 million people in about 2,000 communities already were drinking water with fluoride levels that had been adjusted to optimal. The success of fluoridation brought the dawn of the era of caries control and created great opportunities for research and public health.
本文回顾了导致公共供水系统氟化的科学事件。到1942年完成的牙科和医学研究已经确定了接触天然含氟饮用水的安全性和益处。研究人员和公共卫生工作者得出结论，有可能验证这样一个假设，即在饮用水中天然氟含量约为1 ppm的地区所获得的牙齿健康益处，可以通过将低氟地区的氟含量提高到这一最佳浓度而安全地复制。大急流城成为第一个试验地点，到1959年示范结束时，约2000个社区的近4000万人已经在饮用氟含量已调整到最佳水平的水。氟化的成功带来了龋齿控制时代的曙光，并为研究和公共卫生创造了巨大机会。
