Mr Administrator - what have you done?

Submitted by webadmin on Wed, 08/02/2012 - 14:13

Port Macquarie-Hastings Council were kind enough to give the community two whole weeks' notice of the date of commencement for water fluoridation. The council website now has a special page, dedicated to fluoridation:

Fluoridation of the Port Macquarie-Hastings District Water Supply
NSW Ministry of Health has approved Port Macquarie-Hastings Council's fluoride dosing plant and has instructed Council to commence dosing fluoride into the water supply system.
As a result, Council will commence fluoridation on Tuesday, 21st February 2012.
This will immediately provide fluoridated water to the reticulated water supplies in the Wauchope, Beechwood, Rawdon Island, Sancrox and Thrumster areas.
The level of fluoride provided to the reticulated water supplies in the Port Macquarie and Camden Haven areas will gradually increase over the next 6 to 12 months. Regular updates will be available on this page indicating the fluoride levels in these areas.
Reticulated water supplies at the rural villages of Comboyne, Long Flat and Telegraph Point will not be provided with fluoridated water.

Is two weeks’ notice considered adequate?
4.1.1.3 A Water Supply Authority must not commence fluoridation of a water supply prior to the consumers within that supply area being given adequate warning of the commencement date.
Code of Practice for the fluoridation of public water supplies.

My response to Council's announcement on the start date

In my media statement to the Port News yesterday, I said that I'd seen no evidence that Port Macquarie-Hastings Council waswarning their consumers of any of the ramifications of water fluoridation.

“Is the Council warning parents of infant children not to use fluoridated water in their formula? After all, the American Dental Association has been advising that children less than 12 months old should not be given fluoridated water since 2006.

Is the Council warning people with kidney disease not to drink the soon-to-be fluoridated tap water? The Australian Kidney Foundation warns people through their website that
if your kidneys aren’t working properly, fluoride will accumulate in your body, leading to negative side effects. Patients on dialysis only receive fluoride-free water because it is known that fluoridation chemicals could kill them. Just ask any nurse who works in the renal unit at the base or private hospital."

I also wanted to know, “How will these people get access to fluoride-free water? Will Council provide them with water filtration units which remove fluoride, as councils in Deniliquin did for their consumers in 2003 and the Murray Shire in 2010? We have petitioned both Council and the State Government to provide reverse osmosis filter systems to anyone whose health may be further compromised by consuming fluoridated water. They have refused. Considering one in seven Australians suffers from chronic kidney disease, failure to provide an alternative water supply will surely lead to more people requiring dialysis. Can our hospitals cope with that?”

Council brochure on fluoridation is full of inaccuracies
On page 1 of the council's brochure explaining water fluoridation, they write,

“Current research in Australia has demonstrated a continued benefit of fluoridation in dental decay prevention”

Oh really? Well very recent data obtained under the Right to Information Act from Queensland Health demonstrates an increase in the number of Queensland children who received extractions and fillings due to dental caries in private and public hospitals since water fluoridation was introduced at the beginning of 2009. If water fluoridation is so effective, then this figure should be decreasing not increasing.

The brochure asks the question, “Is water fluoridation safe?”
They don't even bother to answer their own question. Perhaps they're hoping we'll be able to write in and reassure them. Instead, they write,

“According to the NHMRC 1997, ‘The existing body of evidence strongly suggests that water fluoridation is beneficial for reducing dental decay’.”

Same old, same old. The combined “safe and effective” phrase is repeated so often by the fluoride promoters that it is clearly nothing more than an advertising slogan. Constant repetition of this phrase without any science to back it up, does not make it true. Ask any fluoridation proponent to produce just one primary study – not a governmental review, as is occasionally performed by NHMRC in Australia – that convinced them that fluoridation was safe. They won’t be able to do it.

Write to the politicians who are supposed to be respresenting us on this important community issue

NSW Minister for Health, Jillian Skinner; Deputy Premier and MP for Oxley, Andrew Stoner, MP for Port Macquarie, Leslie Williams. Make sure that these politicians are fully aware of the fact that the Rosewood facility must not be commissioned as it does not comply with the Fluoridation Act or with Justice Biscoe’s April 2011 ruling in the NSW Land & Environment Court. Also remind Stoner and Williams of their pre-election promises (available here...)to support a community poll on fluoridation.
We need to hit their inboxes with this immediately.