Council cops criticism over fluoridation

Mylchreest said his council supported the Ministry of Health making the decision.

He acknowledged there was ‘‘significant debate’’ on whether or not fluoride provided public health benefits and the ethical arguments about whether or not there should be mass medication.

‘‘For council to sift through the huge amount of information from both sides of the argument would require technical advice from consultants which is extremely costly and is the main reason that local government took a unified approach to the debate rather than repeating it up and down the country.’’

He said 352 people managed to have their say on the matter when the Bill went before Parliament.

In an email to Titchner, Mylchreest said if the DHB decided to add fluoride to Waipa’s water supply, the council would ‘‘obviously comply with their direction’’.

Under the recommendations in

Fluoride debate

In deciding whether to make a direction, DHBmust consider:

Scientific evidence on effectiveness of adding fluoride to drinking water in reducing prevalence and severity of dental decay.

Whether the benefits of adding fluoride to the drinking water outweigh the financial costs, taking into account the state of the oral health of its population, number of its resident population to whom the local government drinking-water supplier supplies drinking water

The likely financial cost and savings of adding fluoride to the drinkingwater supply, including additional financial costs of ongoing management and monitoring. the Bill, if councils refuse to comply with the directive of the DHB, it could face fines of $200,000 and an additional $100,000 a day.