Page 1700 - Week 08 - Thursday, 28 September 1989
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On 15 May 1973 a two-year-old boy was taken to the Mater Misericordiae Children's Hospital in Brisbane and unfortunately died. The death certificate stated "fluoride poisoning". He had taken some four to six tablets.
Mr Humphries: What does that prove? You could take four to six Valiums and the same thing could happen to you. It does not mean anything.
MR STEVENSON: What it means, Mr Humphries, is that if mothers wish to give their children fluoride tablets, I do not disagree with that, but they need to take care to lock the bottle away. I spoke to somebody else yesterday in this building who caught his child just after it had swallowed a number of tablets. He tipped the child upside down and got it to regurgitate them. I feel he well could have, in that case, saved another child.
Mr Humphries: What parent does not know that already?
MR STEVENSON: A lot of parents do not know the dangers of taking fluoride tablets or fluoride paintings on the teeth. There was another case in New York where a child was given a fluoride painting, he was handed a glass of water, he rinsed his mouth and swallowed it. Once again the cause of death was fluoride poisoning. So it is just an important point to make note of.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
ADJOURNMENT
Motion (by Mr Whalan) proposed:
That the Assembly do now adjourn.
Press Gallery
MR COLLAERY (6.16): Mr Speaker, I want to make a few comments in the adjournment debate. One of the more important aspects of parliamentary democracy is a fair and efficient press reporting of the proceedings. I wish to draw to the attention of members of the Assembly the present living circumstances of the press gallery.
The current situation of the press gallery, Mr Speaker, is not appropriate, in my opinion. The members of the press gallery are not appropriately housed; they are not housed in circumstances where members of the Assembly can go and speak in confidence to members of the press; and they are not housed in a situation that allows for the orderly collation of reports, documents and the recording of our speeches.
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