Hamprecht K et al. 59 per cent of Americans report using such supplements. The US FDA has not yet required the new RDIs and TULs to appear on labels. Some children's products exceeded the TUL for copper, niacin, vitamin A or zinc. Undoubtedly similar problems would be found elsewhere if the supplement industry were better policed.
Supplements sit unhappily between the much better regulated drug and food categories.
The antifluoridation lobby is excited about a study in British Columbia, Canada, which claims to show that in a group of communities which stopped water fluoridation, the prevalence of dental caries actually decreased. Those control communities which continued fluoridation showed no change. Some 6000 children were studied. However, the study was short term, over three to four years, which is too short to provide a real test of change. Many of the other studies suffered the same shortcoming.