Kiwis confused over fluoride
Many New Zealanders are confused about the benefits and risks of adding fluoride to the water supply, the nation's first large-scale survey shows.
A new study found that a third of Kiwis don't know if there are benefits to community water fluoridation while 45 per cent don't know if there are health risks.
The survey of 3500 people by the Hawke's Bay and Hutt Valley district health boards is the biggest to investigate views on fluoridation, with results showing large-scale uncertainty.
Just over half of New Zealand's water supply is fluoridated, a programme started in Hastings in 1954 and proven to reduce tooth decay in children and throughout adult life.
It's administered by councils and supported by the Ministry of Health but fluoridation has its vocal opponents who argue the chemical causes health problems.
Anti-fluoride lobby group Safe Water Alternative NZ fought fluoridation in Hamilton while New Health New Zealand fought it in South Taranaki, both failing.
New Health also lost its High Court bid to have fluoride in drinking water declared a medicine.
Commenting on the latest findings, New Zealand Dental Association spokesman Dr Rob Beaglehole said the arguments put forward by campaigners have left many Kiwis unsure of the truth.
"The paper illustrates how the ongoing emotive information and anti-fluoridation scaremongering gets confused with the actual science," he said.
Overall however, dentists were pleased to see that most New Zealanders, 57 per cent, believed there were benefits compared to just 10 per cent who argued there were not.
The paper was published on Tuesday in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health.
Further work by the researchers suggests New Zealanders want responsibility for fluoridation moved from councils to a health organisation like the Ministry of Health or district health boards.
Dentists and Local Government New Zealand back the shift, with Dr Beaglehole saying the government must modify the process so responsibility rests with skilled, knowledgeable health authorities.
Big Brother dictatorship.
A new study found that a third of Kiwis don't know if there are benefits to community water fluoridation while 45 per cent don't know if there are health risks.
The survey of 3500 people by the Hawke's Bay and Hutt Valley district health boards is the biggest to investigate views on fluoridation, with results showing large-scale uncertainty.
Just over half of New Zealand's water supply is fluoridated, a programme started in Hastings in 1954 and proven to reduce tooth decay in children and throughout adult life.
It's administered by councils and supported by the Ministry of Health but fluoridation has its vocal opponents who argue the chemical causes health problems.
Anti-fluoride lobby group Safe Water Alternative NZ fought fluoridation in Hamilton while New Health New Zealand fought it in South Taranaki, both failing.
New Health also lost its High Court bid to have fluoride in drinking water declared a medicine.
Commenting on the latest findings, New Zealand Dental Association spokesman Dr Rob Beaglehole said the arguments put forward by campaigners have left many Kiwis unsure of the truth.
"The paper illustrates how the ongoing emotive information and anti-fluoridation scaremongering gets confused with the actual science," he said.
Overall however, dentists were pleased to see that most New Zealanders, 57 per cent, believed there were benefits compared to just 10 per cent who argued there were not.
The paper was published on Tuesday in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health.
Further work by the researchers suggests New Zealanders want responsibility for fluoridation moved from councils to a health organisation like the Ministry of Health or district health boards.
Dentists and Local Government New Zealand back the shift, with Dr Beaglehole saying the government must modify the process so responsibility rests with skilled, knowledgeable health authorities.
Big Brother dictatorship.
posted by Bill at
9:17 AM
1 Comments:
"The paper illustrates how the ongoing emotive information and anti-fluoridation scaremongering gets confused with the actual science," he said.
Two of the highest quality reviews, the York Review in 2000, and lately. the Cochrane Report, did thorough and painstaking research of the "actual science", and found little evidence of the efficacy of fluoridation, and none of safety. Furthermore, in 2006, The National Research Council report identified a staggering number of fundamental questions about fluoride’s safety that have yet to be adequately addressed. Not only are the findings of these prestigious research bodies the gold standard of evidence, but when the fluoridation chemicals have never undergone any toxicological tests to determine them safe for human consumption, the science in support of fluoridation is clearly of such poor quality it must be disregarded.
The New Zealand public have had the wool pulled over their eyes by an aggressive nationwide campaign of misinformation by the Ministry of Health and the sham paper it commissioned vested interests to produce to justify the continued mass medication of unsuspecting Kiwis.
By
Carrie, at 12 August, 2015
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