Parents in the Thunder Bay area now have a new way to protect their young children from tooth disease.The Thunder Bay District Health Unit is offering free varnish treatments at its Balmoral Street head office and a dozen day-care centres.The interesting part is that I have seen this program (flouride varnish) advertised by the local health unit for years. ANd the girls had their teeth done at Playgroup last year. Is it possible that TBDHU is playing catch-up?
If you link to the health unit site, some interesting reading is the R2C report.
I appreciate the Health Unit's caution in this and many matters, because snake oil is still being sold in large quantities, often through health food stores.
ReplyDeleteAs an example, you can still buy "natural deodorant crystal" at some or most such stores--it's supposed to be a safe, natural way to deodorize one's underarms. Trouble is,it's pure alum crystal, the same stuff implicated in Alzheimer's and present in nearly all anti-perspirants off the shelf.
The "health food" sector operates on such huge levels of trust that it borders on outright naivete. If you say it's healthy,it's healthy, no questions asked. Except that there should always be questions asked...
So,the Health Unit can be as careful as it wants,IMO.
IF the delay is a result of caution then I agree. But when we watched the story on the news Patty commented that she wasn't sure if TBDHU just might be slower to offer sometihing for other reasons (budgetary for example).
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