Page 2696 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 1991
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children who have been exposed to fluoridated water supplies has fallen substantially, and the reported differences between fluoridated and non-fluoridated areas have led to the inference that fluoridated water was the key determinant of the fall.
In the second report, of November 1990, the major conclusions included:
In the assessment of the Working Group, the aggregate evidence establishes that fluoridation of water to around 1 ppm has, in the past, conferred a substantial protective effect against dental caries. The evidence for this protective effect is strongest in childhood, reflecting the preponderance of research in this age-group. In recent decades, the magnitude of the beneficial effect of water fluoridation appears to have decreased, as the pattern of dental disease has changed and as fluoride has become widely available from a number of discretionary sources. Nevertheless, water fluoridation continues to contribute to the prevention of dental caries, and therefore to provide an important, community-wide, and readily achievable, foundation to dental public health.
Another important conclusion, apart from the fact that drinking water was the best medium in which to provide fluoride, was:
There is no evidence of adverse health effects attributable to fluoride in communities exposed to a combination of fluoridated water (1 ppm) and contemporary discretionary sources of fluoride.
For example, that is in toothpaste and things like that. Mr Deputy Speaker, that is a fairly clear, unambiguous, quite direct and quite apparently compelling statement by the NHMRC working party. When I read that section of the report - it appears relatively early in its deliberations - the question that crossed my mind was: How can our Standing Committee on Social Policy do better than that report? On what basis, scientific basis in particular, could the working group in effect be overruled by evidence that came before the standing committee?
If the subject of that standing committee's consideration had been the ACT electoral system or school closures or section 65 of the self-government Act, I would have no hesitation in preferring the expertise of those worthy members of the Social Policy Committee who deliberated on the subject of fluoride. But, as it happens, the working party, consisting of people of eminent qualification - - -
Ms Maher: Are you saying that we are not?
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