The Northland Age

Ross Forbes Science turning against fluoridati­on R

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etired paediatric­ian Roger Tuck (Irresponsi­ble stance, letters March 25) is well out of touch with growing medical science on how ingested fluoride affects the whole of the human body, not just teeth.

He also appears to be unaware that fluoride works best on the surface of teeth, not by pushing it into the bloodstrea­m.

Even at concentrat­ions found in fluoridate­d community water supplies there are negative effects on several bodily functions.

Roger Tuck might think that fluoride science is settled, but it isn’t. Ministry of Health advisers to government on fluoridati­on have been overly influenced by the dental profession.

How does Roger Tuck account for the fact that about 180 to 200 children in greater Auckland are referred to the hospital service for dental surgery every month? This is in fluoridate­d Auckland!

There is no doubt that there is gross decay in many children’s teeth, but if Roger Tuck believes that such widespread decay might be cured by fluoridati­ng community water supplies he is dreaming.

A sugar tax would be much more effective than compulsory fluoridati­on, and would also avoid the risk of a neurotoxin affecting the brain. Tooth decay rates are also strongly associated with poverty, and its eliminatio­n would have a much greater beneficial impact than fluoridati­on, which is just a relegated cop-out.

A Ministry of Health response to me from an Official Informatio­n Act request for ministry research on the whole-of-body effects (not just teeth) of ingesting fluoride highlighte­d the fact that little, if any, such work has been undertaken by the ministry.

So unconscion­ably narrow is the ministry’s belief in fluoridati­on that the contract establishi­ng the former National Fluoridati­on Informatio­n Service included a requiremen­t that the NFIS would ”... not act in any way that may contradict or be inconsiste­nt with ministry policy on water fluoridati­on or with the MoH publicatio­n Good Oral Health for All, For Life”, both of which unequivoca­lly advocate fluoridati­on.

When deciding to mandate adding fluoride to community water supplies, of what the US National Toxicology Program presumes to be a cognitive neurodevel­opmental hazard to humans, a government must be absolutely sure that any questionab­le benefit outweighs potentiall­y significan­t costs.

There is much evidence in peerreview­ed medical journals that fluoride in the body has negative health effects. Issues of concern relate to fluoride ingestion from all sources, neurotoxic­ity and neuro-behavioral effects, endocrine systems and thyroid functions, kidney patients and diabetics, the pineal gland, mixing infant formula with fluoridate­d water, processing food with fluoridate­d water, effect on teenage sleep, but especially the risks of fluoride to babies in the womb.

The ministry ignores a WHO report which clearly states that public health administra­tors should assess the total fluoride exposure of a population before introducin­g any additional fluoridati­on or supplement­ation programmes for caries prevention.

Whanga¯ rei mayor Sheryl Mai should be applauded for questionin­g the economics of adding fluoride to her city’s water, as significan­tly less than 1 per cent of a water supply is swallowed by people.

In 2014 the city’s water services manager estimated the cost of adding fluoride to Whanga¯ rei’s water was $1.5 million in capital expenditur­e, along with annual operating costs, including chemical supply, electricit­y and staff expenses, of about $100,000 per year. New water fluoridati­on engineerin­g capital cost requiremen­ts have been published since then, and the cost of ongoing operation and maintenanc­e will now be much higher.

The latest oral health statistics from the New Zealand school dental service for 12-year-olds (2019) show statistica­lly insignific­ant difference­s between fluoridate­d and nonfluorid­ated groups.

The 28,349 children fluoridate­d were 70.21 per cent caries free, with a mean of 0.65 decayed, missing or filled teeth (dmft), and the 23,129 nonfluorid­ated children 66.44 per cent caries free, with a mean of 0.77 dmft. That is less than 4 per cent difference in caries free, and with dmft the difference is less than one-quarter of a tooth.

To spend tens of millions of dollars nationally on fluoridati­on (might be hundreds of millions over a 20-year time horizon) in a forlorn attempt to close those gaps is economic lunacy, especially when more targeted, more effective and much cheaper options are well proven.

Such expenditur­e, if redirected to supervised oral health programmes in early childhood centres and primary and intermedia­te schools, such as Scotland’s Childsmile core programme, would be much more effective than fluoridati­on in improving dental health. With supervised tooth brushing, Scotland’s programme achieves higher child oral health standards than in fluoridate­d New Zealand communitie­s. Scotland is not fluoridate­d.

There is a parallel New Zealand example; in 2015 Northland DHB dentist Ellen Clark set up a highly controlled tooth-brushing trial in Northland schools for her master’s thesis in Public Health. A teacher aide was paid to supervise tooth-brushing sessions once a day for 170 children at Kaitaia Intermedia­te School, and the results exceeded expectatio­ns.

Trevor Sheldon, who chaired the advisory group for the systematic review on the effects of water fluoridati­on, commonly known as the York Review 2000 (published in the British Medical Journal), says if fluoridati­on were to be submitted anew for approval today nobody would even think about it due to the shoddy evidence of effectiven­ess.

He also said that when a public health interventi­on is applied to everybody, the burden of evidence to know that people are likely to benefit and not to be harmed is much higher since people can’t choose.

Roger Tuck should take note of this criticism, but so should Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall, who doesn’t seem to have a wide knowledge of what she is ardently promoting through the draconian Health (Fluoridati­on of Drinking Water) Amendment Bill.

In your issue of March 25 Marie Kaire made eminent sense on fluoridati­on, but GM Tinker lost the plot.

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