NZ fluoride facts

So those fluoride free lot are popping their heads up again.

Let’s have some New Zealand facts: New Zealand has a deficiency of some trace elements in the soil.

Deficiency in these trace elements leads to developmental flaws in humans and other animals. Well known New Zealand examples are iodine deficiency leads to mental impairment and cretinism; fluoride deficiency results in poor tooth formation; cobalt deficiency causes bush sickness in cattle.

New Zealand is a country which has already proven the effectiveness of water fluoridation in overcoming a deficiency of fluoride in the diet and should be hailed as a success story in solving a major cause of our appalling historical dental health statistics.

With over 50 years of experience and professional observation we don’t need North American research shoved in our face.

It is not relevant to New Zealand’s specific conditions.

Scaremongering and false ‘facts’ have no place in the basic health credo of ‘do no harm’. Poor dental health is a major New Zealand problem. Providing adequate fluoridation, especially through water fluoridation, changed teeth from developing with weak enamel and deep pits and fissures just waiting to trap bacteria and sugar, to teeth with strong, resistant enamel and smooth well shaped form capable of letting saliva do its job of washing sugary food and bacteria off the teeth before it has time to do any harm.

What we need is more community fluoridated water supplies, only then will every child born in this country have the gift of optimal dental health regardless of the individual circumstances they are born into. Surely the wish of every grown-up in this fairminded and aspiring egalitarian society of ours. DAWN SINCLAIR Waihi