The 50th Anniversary of Water Fluoridation in Grand Rapids, Michigan

The Grand Rapids Committee for the 50th Anniversary of Water Fluoridation and the University of Michigan School of Dentistry are pleased to publish the proceedingsof the symposium commemorating the 50th anniversary of water fluoridation in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in this issue of the Journal of Public Health Dentistry. These proceedings were made available by a generous lead gift from Delta Dental Fund of Michigan. In these proceedings, we celebrate the single most important clinical event in the history of dentistry, an event of such profound impact that the pandemic of dental decay, which spread throughout the world after the introduction of sugar in the diet, has ended. Today, as we prepare to enter the 21st century, we in dentistry can be in control of our clinical destiny. No longer do people expect to lose all their teeth. We have had successive generations of children who have never experienced the excruciating pain of a toothache. More than 50 percent of our youth are free of dental decay. The majority of senior citizens have most of their own teeth. This multigenerational improvement in oral health can be attributed primarily to fluoride; and the use of fluoride in drinking water began with the classic studies performed here in Grand Rapids. In these proceedings we celebrate this magnificent achievement by looking at the past, the present, and the future. Drs. David Scott and Ray Stevens, in their essays, provide a unique historic perspective, as they were both in Grand Rapids at the dawn of this new era in dentistry. Dr. Scott was a member of the US Public Health Service team, headed by H. Trendley Dean and Francis Arnold, that initiated water fluoridation in the Grand Rapids water system at the request of the dental community of Grand Rapids. Dr. Scott recounts the The Fluoridation Commemorative Monument was dedicated in September 2995 in Grand Rapids, Michigan.