The worst thing to come out of children's mouths - Lifestyle - Style - Wellbeing - The Advocate

About 75% of Australia is fluoridated: "Children as young as four are having all of their baby teeth removed because of poor oral health, dentists say.

Hundreds of youngsters - some yet to attend school - are forced to undergo surgery to have rotting teeth removed or root canal.

In the worst cases, children are put on intravenous antibiotics to save their lives."

"The Australian Dental Association says five per cent of Australian children have extensive early childhood caries (decay or crumbling of a tooth)."

"We don't really know if [the five per cent figure] is the full extent of things because if you never see children, you never know what's really going on," Dr Sawyer said."

"You ask any public health service, they've seen really decayed [children's] teeth. It's not unusual that they have to take out all 24 baby teeth."