Have your say: Fluoride mirage

A reader wants more information on water fluoridation.

Fluoride again!

Don't tell me! The aluminium industry's not making enough money again, and needs help in getting rid of a poisonous waste product in addition to its Government subsidy.

It's exceedingly difficult to do a controlled experiment with human beings, but one of the nearest approaches ever made was the Napier/Hastings twin city scenario in about the 1960s. One with its water containing fluoride, the other not.

The fact that the un-fluoridated one showed the best results was recorded in this excellent newspaper, along with some lame excuse about the presence of Molibdenum in its soil.

I've been wondering ever since when someone was going to advocate "molybdenising" water. But then, of course, that isn't somebody's industrial waste.

I'm sure we will also be getting again emotional comments about "Hokianga tank water". I was brought up on nothing else for the first 10 years of my life, plus good, sensible food.
I started getting a few cavities later when boarding away at school, but at my ripe old age still have most of my teeth.

I believe it is an anachronism when a parent may face risk of a gaol sentence for giving a child a light slap for a misdemeanour, but nothing is done to correct feeding procedures that rot their teeth in the first few years of life.

Certainly, a lot of this is linked with unnecessary poverty and irresponsible advertising, but there appears to be little or no education in this field.

I suggest the Health Board puts effort into this avenue rather than chasing a phantom that has lost credence all over the world.

John G Rawson
Whangarei