Page 2695 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 1991
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There being no objection, that course will be followed. I remind members that in debating order of the day No. 1 they may also address their remarks to order of the day No. 2 and Assembly Business order of the day No. 1.
MR HUMPHRIES (8.42): It is perhaps unfortunate that we return to the subject of fluoride, after having visited it on previous occasions in fashions which I think did little credit to the Assembly or its standing in the community. It is regrettable in some ways that we have had to return to it tonight, for what I hope will be the last time for some period to come.
Mr Duby: Ever.
MR HUMPHRIES: I would not be quite so confident as to say "ever", but certainly I hope that it will be for some time to come. Mr Speaker, what could be mildly described as a blizzard of information is circulating in the public arena at present about fluoride and its effects on the public and on public health. That has led, in other places as well as the ACT, to a certain scientific polemicism on this subject. In particular, I note that the committee quoted in its report one P. Cullen who suggested that the emergence of "advocacy science" - that is, a trend whereby scientists select evidence to support their position - is a threat to the traditional approach of science that is motivated by a search for truth. It is undoubtedly, I think, Mr Speaker, a trend which has emerged in this debate.
We have seen very widely differing arguments emerge about the effects of fluoride, based on similar bodies of evidence. We are entitled to ask ourselves exactly how that occurs and exactly why it is that people with apparently major and quite respectable credentials in this area should find themselves in such violent disagreement about the sets of data that they are using to make these sorts of comments. I think the issue has absorbed enormous resources, and certainly time, both of this Assembly and, in particular, of the Social Policy Committee. The Social Policy Committee awaited the report of a working party of the NHMRC, which reported in November last year, before it made its report. I think that is a very valuable step to have taken, given that that working party report says some very interesting things about the whole question that that standing committee had to consider.
I would like to quote a few paragraphs from the first and second interim reports of the NHMRC working party. The first report said:
The application of 1 ppm fluoride to water has provided a public health measure of apparently great efficacy. Repeatedly, in observational and experimental studies, in which caries experience has been monitored, the standard index of decayed, missing and filled teeth or surfaces in which
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