Given the rising rate of caries in children, the dental industry needs to rethink current instructions to parents regarding the use of fluoridated toothpaste for children younger than age 2, according to an editorial in the latest edition of the Journal of the American Dental Association (June 2009, Vol. 140:6, pp. 628-631).
Regular use of fluoridated toothpaste is an accessible and low-cost strategy to preventing caries in young children, wrote Peter Milgrom, D.D.S., and co-authors from the University of Washington in Seattle.
Dentists, physicians, and parents in the U.S. resist the use of regular fluoridated toothpaste with very young children, and the U.S. FDA Drug Facts label also discourages its use in this population, according to the authors.
"Formally testing the benefits and secondary effects of the use of 1,100-ppm fluoridated toothpaste with infants and toddlers in the United States who are at high risk of developing caries -- and changing instructions for use on toothpaste labels, if appropriate -- can benefit many children at little cost relative to current investments in dental research and profits from oral care products," the authors wrote.
Based on existing science and the rising levels of dental caries, "clinical trials of fluoridated toothpaste for very young children in the United States are overdue," the authors concluded.
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