Australia - Letter

Fluoride issues

Re Editorial in the North West Star (Sep 25) arguing for water fluoridation. 

I work in Geelong, Victoria that was fluoridated in 2009. Many patients became badly affected by the fluoride after it went in. 

When fluoride was taken by tablet if someone got a reaction, one could stop the then tablet and toothpaste treatments and they would recover. 

Once the fluoride treatment is in the drinking water, washing water and water used for food production, it takes a lot of work to cut down how much of the fluoride treatment people are still getting.   

I recall around 1986 when I had noticed aluminum smelter workers with skin problems and asthma were moved to the lower fluoride exposure areas and did get a bit better, a mother brought her young kid in for treatment after she nearly died after an asthma attack.  

The child had fluorosis on some teeth, was on F tablets, so I asked mother if she would like to do the same experiment with her child that they appeared to do at Alcoa with good results  for asthma – of reducing fluoride intake. 

So mother agreed to stop fluoride tablets and toothpaste.  The repeated asthma attacks got fewer and less intense over the following months until she was no longer asthmatic. 

Wouldn't it be nice to have somebody who is part of our health authorities  organizing their first OFFICIAL clinical testing ever to see if fluoridation is harming citizens?  

However there are growing concerns in America that fluoride could be reducing the intelligence of our children.

So at the moment, I don't think any funding request for such a study would be looked at sympathetically. 

It seems there must be  a foreboding in establishment circles about what any properly done research is eventually going to find.   

Philip Robertson

Carmoora Clinic 

Geelong,