Water fluoridation began in the early 1900's with a dentist from Colorado, Dr. Frederick McKay, noticed that a lot of his patients had brown staining and enamel mottling on their teeth. Him and his colleague, Dr. G. V Black, researched for years. They soon discovered that the individuals who had this staining and mottled enamel were resistant to tooth decay.
By the 1930's, they discovered that those who's water had high levels of natural fluoride had this staining. This led to the name "Colorado Brown Stain" which is now known as moderate-severe dental fluorosis.
In 1939, a man by the name Dr. Gerald J. Cox and his associates made the proposal of adding fluoride to the water to prevent tooth decay.
The first city in the world to make its water fluoride level to 1 ppm was Grand Rapids, Michigan. The first city in Canada to make this adjustment was Brantford, Ontario. Over the course of seven years, the dental and medical statuses were compared between two cities in Ontario (one with fluoridated water, the other without) using clinical trials. The results from the clinical data were so impressive, other cities began to fluoridate, before the classical trials were completed.
Over 400 million people throughout the world have fluoridated water, and 75.9% of the population of Ontario have fluoridated water.
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