New Zealand Health Minister Promotes Water Fluoridation

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Health

When it comes to fluoridation of the water supply, tempers run hot - both on the pro and the con side of the debate. Fluoridation vastly improves children's oral health say the proponents. Fluoridation introduces toxic components into our food and environment. It has negative consequences for people's health, say some published studies quoted by opponents of fluoridation.

One would think that a health minister should encourage debate to find the best solution, rather than occupy a dogmatic position from which to promote one side. But it seems that in New Zealand, Health Minister Annette King is tired of the debate and promotes fluoridation by actively avoiding both public exposure and challenge to the fundamental premise of improved health.

Maybe the New Zealand Health Authorities should take a clue from other countries around the globe who have quietly abandoned fluoridation. Belgium has even outlawed fluoride in all foods, which means supplements and chewing gums and is facing the European Union on the question. Most recently, the City of Basel in Switzerland abandoned its fluoridation program, after being unable to find any documentable health benefits in over 40 years of trying.

Thanks to Liston Bateson - Kiwi Joe - from New Zealand who forwarded the following report, and this report about the Scientific Facts on the Biological Effects of Fluorides.

Greetings and Salutations,

Things done in secret always have a pong, and demonstrate the instigators' desire to gain unfair advantage over others who would normally oppose such measures.

You are the ones who are about to be deceived, because you are not considered intelligent enough to evaluate the benefits of medication enforced by stealth.

It has been noticed over many years and is evident in countries too poor to afford these enforced medications, that children not exposed to sweet acidic foods and juices do not have problems with cavities.

Once there is an understanding of this and an education program promoted on the prevention of tooth decay, the need to consume any additional poison falls away.

Visit the website below.
 
Regards
Kiwi Joe

"Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it; it is good only for wallowing." --Katherine Mansfield

Annette King's Brown-shirt Conference
The 3rd NZ Fluoridation Forum

Your right to pure water is under serious threat from covert work by the Minister of Health and District Health Boards.

As part of the ongoing attack on our water supply and civil rights, NZ's leading fluoridation zealot, the Minister of Health, Annette King, has been co-ordinating efforts, unseen by the average New Zealander, to push fluoridation down our throats. This is in spite of mounting evidence of harmful effects, and the damning York Review which found no reliable evidence of benefit, no evidence of social equity promotion, and no proof of safety.

King addressed the third NZ "Fluoridation Forum" recently, a secretive conference aimed at "developing tactics to overcome opponents." King lamented that "some things never change". How true. This strategy, of appointing a fluoridation task force, and holding secret meetings, is a repetition of the Ministry's tactics of the 1950's. Their 1958 "Fluoridation Symposium" likewise addressed strategies for politically overcoming opponents, with as little regard for the truth as this conference appears to have had. Like the current forum sequence (2001, 2002, 2003), the proceedings were not made public.

The 1958 symposium recommended that promoters "avoid fluoridation becoming a public issue", and to "avoid fuss in the community - work quietly in the small community groups" and generate a demand by convincing small groups, then promote these to the council as representing mass public opinion. Promoters of fluoridation were advised not to allow the issue to be discussed in the Press, and above all, to avoid open public debate (a position maintained today).

One tactic was to arrange a closed seminar to promote fluoridation to a Council without opportunity for opposing facts or views to be put and to persuade councillors to refer any issues subsequently raised back to the promotional team rather than seeking independent information.

King states "[the forum] has developed strategies to counter anti-fluoridation claims". Surely the public has a right to reliable research and facts in making health decisions, not "strategies" to counter claims based on internationally published peer-reviewed research, and a position supported by respected scientists, as acknowledged by the Ministry (OIA response, Dr Colin Tukuitonga, acting Director-General of Health.)

King also states "the Ministry continues to fund research into effective strategies for promoting fluoridation" - taxpayers money used against taxpayers for propaganda to promote a misguided, unscientific, unsafe, and unethical practice.

King further states that fluoridation is "pivotal" to New Zealand's health strategy. By contrast, the Health Minister of Luxembourg described fluoridation as "a naïve utopia without practical effect" at the time Europe was rejecting fluoridation after 10 year trials had proven no benefit.

It is being suggested that, since the public reject fluoridation when given the choice, the decision on fluoridation should be transferred to District Health Boards, who do the Ministry's bidding, rather than local authorities as at present, and as recommended by the Commission of Inquiry in 1957. This is compulsory fluoridation by the back door:

Government appointees to the District Health Boards are required to promote fluoridation as part of their employment contract. A similar strategy has recently been adopted in the USA and UK. Another proposed policy is that water authorities who do not fluoridate should be charged for "additional oral healthcare", for which no evidence exists. This would be an unlawful fetter on councils as the statutory decisionmakers. It would also be an interesting court case if a District Health Board tried to prove the cost, in light of the York Review's finding on the unreliability of any epidemiological study claiming to show benefit. It is also suggested that fluoridation be part of the drinking water standards (again).

It was to meet such an organised attack on the truth about fluoridation, and democratic rights, that a national anti-fluoridation movement arose in 1956, and that, in the same situation, Fluoride Action Network (NZ) was formed in early 2003. The amount of research since 1995 proving adverse health effects is considerable, and has been conducted by independent scientists, not beholden to commercial or political interests for grant money. That research includes proof of central nervous system (Mullinex 1995), increased lead uptake due to silicofluorides specifically (Masters & Coplan 1999), accumulation in the pineal gland and resultant inhibition of melatonin production (Luke 1997 & 2001), and evidence of the creation of alzheimer-like amyloids in the brain (Varner 1998) and disruption of the G-protein cell communication mechanism (Strunecka, 2002). The US EPA, a pro-fluoridation body, acknowledged on 25 April 2002 that silicofluorides used for water fluoridation do not have the same effect on the body as "natural" fluoride and that their human health safety has never been tested.

What is most important is that we, the people of New Zealand, work together now to safeguard our water, health, and rights from a minority of zealots who think they have a right to force their misguided opinions on the rest of us. FAN(NZ) is here to facilitate and co-ordinate such an effort, and will continue to work until NZ is free from the unconscionable practice of water fluoridation.

Annette King's speech

I am delighted to have been invited to speak to this forum yet again, And let me start by saying "some things never change".

All round the country there are still communities going over the same old ground, or same old water, as they debate whether to fluoridate their water supplies. (Ed - This is what the Health Department argued for in 1963/64, and the Privy Council gave them what they wanted.)

Just in the last few weeks the stories have focused on Winton and the West Coast, while the Christchurch newspapers have been publishing dozens of letters to the editor following the push by the Canterbury District Health Board to have that region's water supply fluoridated.

Something else never changes either from one Water Fluoridation Forum to another. As Health Minister I continue to regard fluoridation of water supplies as the most effective means we have at our disposal to improve the dental health of our children, and to prevent our children having to suffer unnecessary pain and health problems.

I want to thank you for the enormous amount of work that has been and still is being undertaken around the country to promote and protect water fluoridation. Much of what you do can sometimes occur in quite a difficult and confrontational environment, and that makes your contribution all the more valued.

You seem to be bearing up well. I am heartened to see so many familiar faces here, as well as some not so familiar.

You embrace a wide range of participants, from New Zealand Dental Association members, dental health therapists and managers, members of the Maori dental organisation, public health services, medical officers of health, communications experts, and other oral health experts from both public and personal health sectors.

Thank you all, whatever capacity you are here in. Without your help, my job and the jobs of the Health Ministry and District Health Boards in promoting oral health would be immeasurably more difficult.

This forum has progressed remarkably it began in 2001, with that first meeting helping raise awareness particularly about water fluoridation.

The second forum expanded awareness by building and fostering a support base, establishing and maintaining networks to support water fluoridation; and providing participants with tools, information and skills to promote and protect fluoridation within their own communities.

And now this third forum has expanded again, rather successfully, I'm told. It has developed strategies to counter anti-fluoridation claims; has provided updates on important research and proposed research; and has focused more on the relationship between Maori oral health and water fluoridation, and on the role the promotion of fluoridation plays in reducing oral health inequalities.

This forum has also continued the pattern of strengthening networks to support all those involved in promoting water fluoridation.

The work being undertaken here and back in your own professional environments is of great importance. Improving the oral health of all New Zealanders is one of the 13 population health objectives in the New Zealand Health Strategy. Controversial though it can be, water fluoridation is pivotal in achieving this objective.

Access to accurate and credible information is vitally important given the debate over supposed adverse effects of water fluoridation. Anti-fluoridationists are vociferous, and, understandably, communities and local authorities find themselves in a difficult situation when the information gulf between pro- and anti-fluoridationists is so wide.

This forum captures public attention and interest, and provides professional groups, practitioners and communities with factual information about the value of water fluoridation.

I do not need to remind this meeting of the enormous wealth of evidence demonstrating the effective