Garth George: Fluoride addition an essential step

I was dumbfounded to learn, through a sad story in this newspaper a couple of weeks ago, that Tauranga's water supply remains unfluoridated - more than 55 years after harmless quantities of fluoride were first introduced into public water supplies in New Zealand.

I had the same reaction when I learned a few years ago, when we moved here, that Rotorua citizens are also deprived of one of the most significant and successful public health initiatives of my lifetime.

It is almost unbelievable that successive city and district councils have listened to a few raucous anti-fluoride fanatics and sat on their hands for over half a century.

And it goes beyond tragic that generations of Tauranga children and adults have had to go without the tremendous benefits to their oral health of fluoridated water.

This is tantamount to child abuse, made all the worse because it is child abuse inflicted by the dereliction of duty of the municipal authority.

But you can bet your bottom dollar that within days of this column appearing, anti-fluoridationists will crawl out of their caves and once again give vent to their silly, selfish and superstitious nonsense.

Considering that they no longer have a shred of credibility, and that all of them in Tauranga would comfortably fit into a public toilet, they can be, and should be, ignored.

There is overwhelming evidence throughout New Zealand of the vast improvements over the past 55 years in the nation's teeth and oral health resulting from fluoridated water, and no credible evidence whatsoever of any deleterious effects from its addition.

On the other hand there is overwhelming - and I say sickening - evidence of the penalties of not fluoridating water, made patently obvious in the Times' story which alerted me to this tragedy, which reported that bad breath, bleeding gums and rotting teeth were some of the many preventable dental problems facing the Western Bay.

The first city to fluoridate its water was Hastings in 1954.

After a commission of inquiry into fluoridation in 1957, its use rapidly expanded in the 1960s.

Today, there are some 84 fluoridated water supplies in the country, according to the Ministry of Health.

In 1994, the World Health Organisation published a report re-affirming its support of fluoridation as safe and effective in preventing tooth decay, and around the world more than 60 countries have fluoridated water supplies covering hundreds of millions of people.

South Africa has made it mandatory for every water provider to include fluoride; in Israel it is required for all communities of more than 5000 people; in the United States fluoride is automatically introduced in all new community water supplies, and California has made it mandatory for all communities of more than 100,000.

The Ministry of Health said: "Research concludes that water fluoridation is safe and effective. "There is no proven evidence that fluoride, at recommended levels in water supplies, causes any negative health effects ...

"Claims have been made that fluoridation causes or contributes to cancer, skeleton fluorosis, Down syndrome, renal disease, allergic conditions and fluoride hypersensitivities, repetition strain injury, mutagenicity and causes interference with enzyme function.

"These claims have not been substantiated by experimental studies or epidemiological analyses ... the weight of scientific evidence supporting the safety and effectiveness of fluoridation is overwhelming ."

Meanwhile Tauranga, a growing and increasingly sophisticated city, continues to play out the Luddites' last stand.

And all it needs is for the city council to have the intelligence and the guts to get on and do it - and to hell with the cost.

It would certainly help to drag Tauranga through into the 20th century.

The 21st century is going to have to wait its turn.

garth.george@hotmail.com