Flouride in Japan

The queries we get! About looking after our teeth, for example. Nancy Ridenour, who lives in Gifu, recalls being told a decade ago by a Colgate rep that fluoride is not introduced into Japanese toothpaste, nor is it legal in water here. As a result, she's been bringing in supplies of fluoride toothpaste from the States all these years.

"Is there any way to get a definitive answer," she asks.

Dr Kazunori Shioya, who is chairman of his local dentist's association in Tsurumi, near Yokohama, says the Colgate rep was right about fluoride in Japanese toothpaste at that time. But now the law has changed and fluoride -- as a compound of fluorine, known as husso -- is used in products.