Australia - Many across NSW denied the right to healthy teeth

Many across NSW denied the right to healthy teeth
HUNDREDS of thousands of NSW residents are being denied access to fluoridated water - most against their will.
NSW Health records show that while the state has one of Australia's highest uptakes of fluoridation, almost 300,000 people still go without.
Repeated surveys by NSW Health and independent organisations have found that more than 60 per cent of people in the northern NSW communities where lack of fluoridated drinking water is most prevalent actually support the scheme.
Fewer than 25 per cent were actually against the idea, but Lismore, Byron and Richmond Valley councils in that region continue to ignore the majority of ratepayers and take heed of a vocal anti-fluoride minority.
HEALTH EXPERTS BACK FLUORIDE ACROSS NSW
Australian Dental Association spokesman Dr Michael Foley said that while some rural areas couldn't fluoridate their water because it either already had high fluoride levels or was too costly to be practical, larger towns and cities had no excuse.
ANTI-VACCINATION CRAZIES HAVE MOVED ON TO FLUORIDATION
"The issue there is likely to be the strong opposition from alternative lifestylers," he said.
"Unfortunately that results in these towns and cities having the highest decay rates in the state and also the highest rates of whooping cough, measles, et cetera, because they also don't like vaccinations."
PREMIER BACKS COUNCILS OVER FLUORIDE
"Those opposed to fluoridation are very active and very vocal, and too often their relentless campaign of misinformation and scaremongering creates enough doubt in the minds of councillors."
And it's not just residents in those areas who pay the price.
The Federal Government's Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Baggoley, said every dollar spent on fluoridating Australia's water supply saved up to $80 in dental treatment costs alone.
"In 2002, the Victorian government estimated that over the past 25 years, fluoridation saved the Victorian community nearly $1 billion in avoided dental costs, lost productivity and saved leisure time," he said.
Lismore dentist Dr Brendan White said health resources in the Northern Rivers region were so stretched by patients with serious dental problems that many were now forced to seek treatment interstate.
He cited health data charting more than half a century of dental decay in NSW, which revealed the enormous benefits of fluoridated water.
In 1956, when it was first introduced in Yass, children aged 12 had an average of almost 10 decayed, missing or filled teeth.
By 2007, when more than 90 per cent of the population had access to fluoridated water, that had dropped to less than one.
Dr White used the Blue Mountains, where fluoridated water was introduced in 1993, as another example.
The proportion of children there aged 9-11 with dental problems dropped by 75 per cent within a decade of its introduction, while the average number of decayed, missing or filled teeth for primary school children fell by more than 50 per cent.

The pro fluoride pushers must be getting desperate now calling us crazies!
Having spoken to many people who never had a view after telling them the nature of the stuff they put in and its 98% purity, the tonnes they add each year. The amount of fluorosis caused by it. That  is enough for most people to be against fluoridation.