Dental guild suppressed vitamin D, promoted fluoridation in 1940s to knock down competition from physicians, study concludes

Dental guild suppressed vitamin D, promoted fluoridation in 1940s to knock
down competition from physicians, study concludes
 

 

The American Dental Association (ADA) in 1944 abruptly ended its endorsement of
vitamin D supplements, as found in cod liver oil, to reduce tooth decay, and erected topical
fluoride application instead to block physicians from treating patients for tooth decay,
according to a recent report in the Nutrients journal.
Based on a detailed reading of the records of the ADA’s Council on Dental Therapeutics
(CDT), Philippe P. Hujoel of the University of Washington’s School of

Dentistry reports that the
ADA was a trailblazer in endorsing vitamin D-containing cod liver oil as an “aid in the
prophylaxis against caries,” but that the ADA CDT at the end of 1944 announced, “claims for
vitamin D as a factor in the prevention of tooth decay are not acceptable.”
Hujoel notes that the normal procedures for evaluating therapies were not followed,
and that the change came after vitamin D supplementation had become widely accepted and
supported by research. He reports that a particular advertisement in the Journal of the
American Medical Association for the dental benefits of Carnation Milk triggered the dental
guild’s move against vitamin D deficiency. Nutritional deficiencies were in the domain of
physicians while fluoride was not.
With its success in suppressing vitamin D supplementation, the dental guild went on to
dismiss other dental-related deficiencies such as vitamin C for gingival bleeding, according to
Hujoel.
“The power of professional organizations of clinical specialists to shape conventional
wisdoms despite a slew of red flags is remarkable. It did not matter in this case that the
specialists created a conventional wisdom which was opposite of a preponderance of
evidence. It did not matter that the professional organization had a self-evident conflict of
interest; topical fluoride applications in dental offices were revenue-generating procedures,
vitamin D prescriptions were not. It did not matter that the National Academy of Sciences
and the American Medical Association came to opposite conclusions of a specialist professional
organization. None of these red flags mattered—clinical specialists were considered
trustworthy even when controlled trial evidence suggested that their expert opinions could be
causing harm. That the WHO and other organizations ignored these red flags and blindly
adopted the opinion of conflicted specialists is remarkable,” writes Hujoel.
He concludes, “Public health may well depend on looking at professional societies no
different than the way we look at the pharmaceutical industry— conflicted organizations with a
power to shape conventional wisdom based on fragile evidence. This historical analysis adds to
the evidence that professional societies should serve their members and be kept at arm’s
length from research agendas, disease definitions, clinical practice guidelines, and public health
policies.”
https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13124361