Update on the Toothpaste Trial

  

Retired dentist Barry Stewart has returned to Australia with survey forms and a bag of coral (dead, not live!) to be made into toothpaste there. He had a bit of explaining to do to Australian Customs! However, he managed to convince them eventually and he and his helpers have since been analysing the data from the first phase of the trial, and are no doubt working on grinding the coral to the right consistency to make the next batch of toothpaste.

Here are a couple of photos of one Grade 1 student in the first week of the trial, and then after they had been doing the daily brushing at school and (hopefully) at home with the 'locally made' toothpaste for a week. The pink/purple colour is the dye that shows up the plaque. 

The result looks great, but of course keeping the brushing habit going is the hard part. Lots of work has been done over the years in schools encouraging children to brush every day, but it never seems to last, for many different reasons. 

Sometimes, it might be one enthusiastic staff member who drives it, but when they leave it dies out. Or the school runs out of supplies of toothpaste and nobody bothers to ask for more (or the supplier does not follow up), and once again it dies out.

The graph shows the big decrease in the amount of plaque on the children's teeth with the initial examination in week 1 shown in blue, and after they have been brushing regularly for a week shown in red. We expected there would be lots of enthusiasm initially though, so whether that improvement can be sustained over the 3 months of the trial remains to be seen when we carry out the 3rd and final examination in July.

The children keep their brushes at school in a special cabinet so the brushes don't touch each other and stay clean. (The children each have another brush at home as well.) The teacher applies the toothpaste each morning,

then they go outside and brush. Keep up the good work Central School 😁.