Page 1515 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 27 September 1989
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It is about time that fluoridation was stopped totally in Australia, and it is a valid argument that it should start on a major scale with the prevention of the addition of fluoride to the water supply of the Australian Capital Territory.
MR WHALAN (Minister for Industry, Employment and Education) (12.22): I would like to commence my remarks by reading the full text of the letter referred to by Dr Kinloch, the letter written by H.W. Arndt and printed in the Canberra Times on 26 September. The text of the letter is:
As one of the few surviving members of the ACT Advisory Council which in the 1950s, on the strong advice of the World Health Organisation and the Commonwealth Medical Officer and with the support of the overwhelming majority of the dental profession, recommended to the minister the fluoridation of the Canberra water supply, allow me to urge the House of Assembly not to undo a reform which has conferred great benefit on the children and people of Canberra.
While the question was under discussion, we were flooded with scurrilous propaganda from cranks who denounced fluoridation as a Jewish-communist conspiracy and predicted all sorts of disastrous consequences. There has been no evidence of any such consequences, but the cranks are still at it.
Let the Assembly listen to professional medical opinion, not to ill-informed scaremongers.
I would like also to refer, Mr Deputy Speaker, to an article that was in the Canberra Times on the same day, 26 September, under the heading "No fluoridation, no ring of confidence". The article reads:
The Australian Dental Association has slammed a proposal to remove fluoride from the ACT water supply, saying it would re-introduce trauma for children going to the dentist.
Association spokesman John Fricker said yesterday that there were no proven adverse effects from fluoride use and the benefits were widely accepted.
The United States Surgeon-General issued in July last year a nutrition report reviewing 2500 research studies, Mr Fricker said. The report had recommended that a water supply should contain 1 mg of fluoride a litre.
The Australian National Health and Medical Research Council had in 1985 reaffirmed its previous recommendation that water fluoridation was an effective control of dental decay.
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