FLUORIDATION
Sir.-Dr. H. B. Turbott has poohpoohed the misgivings of people in Hastings and Havelock North who object to the fluoridation of their borough water supply. I would like, briefly, to say why, having tried it, 4700 of them have signed @ petition demanding its discontinuance. 1. The Hastings Borough Council was induced by the local dental society to undertake the addition of sodium fluoride to the water as an "experiment" to show its _ effect on children’s teeth in with those of Napier. The Council did this without the consent of the people, believing the fluoride to be "harmless and not noticeable." 2. Fluorine is a poisonous element, the most active of the non-metals. The margin betwéen its safe usage and danger point is too narrow to make it suitable for mass medication of the people. Some are more sensitive to it than others, some quite allergic. Copious water drinkers can get too much, and it can be condensed by evaporation in cooking. If one part per million seems to benefit children’s teeth, two parts may cause mottling and pitting of teeth and five parts may result in fluorosis (hardening of the bones). When conveyed to every part of the body, fluorine can have effects quite beyond present medical knowledge. 3. Many people are complaining of illeffects, especially of a feeling of burning and rawness in the mouth and digestive troubles, which cease when non-medi-cated water is used, and recommence on return to the fluoridated supply. Hundreds are drawing water from wells, tanks, and some doubtful sources in order to avoid fluorine. We believe there is no guarantee that the effects of fluorine are not cumulative with delayed action. 4. People resent authoritative methods. Whatever the value of a medicine may be, the individual citizen has the right to say "I don’t want it." We believe the whole trouble could be solved by making use of sodium fluoride optional. Goitre has been brought under control by the optional use of iodine in table-salt. Some similar atrangement could be devised for making fluorine available for those people who want it.
F. C.
RUSH-MONRO
President,
Hastings Anti-Fluoridation Society.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 776, 4 June 1954, Page 5
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355FLUORIDATION New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 776, 4 June 1954, Page 5
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