NZ - Dental worker angry over fluoride vote

Dental worker angry over fluoride vote
By Michelle Nelson
The day before Ashburton voted not to reintroduce fluoride to the town’s water supply, Janet Quigley sent a five-year-old Ashburton boy to hospital, where he will have six rotten back teeth removed under general anaesthetic.
Mrs Quigley is the co-ordinator for the Central Canterbury dental service. She sees first-hand the rapidly deteriorating dental health in the district’s children, and she is angry the results of Saturday’s council referendum will keep fluoride out of the Ashburton water supply.
“It (fluoride) is the most cost-effective way we have of controlling the current epidemic.
“People have chosen to spend the health dollar giving young children general anaesthetics – the health dollar only goes so far and people on other waiting lists will suffer,” she said.
Mrs Quigley blamed voter confusion on the efforts of the anti-fluoride lobbyists spreading what she called unsubstantiated nonsense about health risks associated with fluoride.
“I can’t understand how sensible Ashburton people, who visit their health care professional on a daily basis and take their advice, have chosen to believe the rubbish (anti-fluoride lobbyist) Don Church has been spouting.
“People in Methven have had fluoride in their water supply for years; so have people in Burnham, Dunedin and most of the North Island – and they are all quite normal,” Mrs Quigley said.
She had personally spoken to early voters who had changed their mind after hearing the full facts about fluoride and too late wished to change their votes to support its reintroduction to the town’s water supply.
She is of the opinion that the low voter turnout was also a result of the “scare tactics employed by the anti-fluoride brigade”, which resulted in many people abstaining from voting.
Complacency on the part of some eligible voters was also responsible for results, she said.
“Those opposed to fluoride voted, whereas a lot of other people, who would have been happy to see it in, didn’t bother,” Mrs Quigley said.
Mrs Quigley was also critical of the biased national media coverage, in particular a recent TV3 documentary covering the Mid Canterbury fluoride debate.
“It talked about fluoride recently being voted out on the West Coast but not the fact it had gone back in Hamilton water recently,” she said. However, she praised local media coverage of the issue.
But at the end of the day what makes Mrs Quigley really angry is that it is the children who will suffer.
“I work with those kids and have done for years. I see the deterioration first-hand, every day.
“We don’t want to sit here drilling and filling teeth but unfortunately that’s all we can see in front of us.”
And Mrs Quigley has a message for Mr Church, who has stated his intention to take his battle to Methven, where the town water supply has been fluoridated for over 50 years.
“We won’t stop pushing fluoride and we won’t give up the battle.
“If Church wants to go up to Methven and start a fight we will give him a fight. We’ve learned a lot about campaigning. It’s not our job, but we’ve done it,” she said.


March 14 2007

Weird really how good intelligent people can be so convinced that they are right on the same evidence yet be be diametrically opposed.