Page 2698 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 1991
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The evidence before the committee was much the same as that before the NHMRC working party. It came to a different view, however. Which view are we to prefer - that of the working party or that of the Standing Committee on Social Policy? I think that, because of the onus that I suggested was placed on the standing committee, it is better to prefer the view of the NHMRC working party. For example, the report discusses, particularly around pages 100 and 101, the reasons for the recommendation that the concentration of fluoride in the ACT water supply be reduced to 0.5 parts per million, and the arguments for that are gone through in some detail. There is a discussion of the levels and modes of fluoridation or non-fluoridation in other countries and the sorts of foods and topical applications where fluoride is available in this country and elsewhere, and then there is some discussion of the scientific evidence, presumably the same as was before the NHMRC working party.
The words on page 101 appear to be with respect to a discussion of other surveys that indicate what effect would be had on children's teeth if levels of fluoride were reduced. I quote:
Expressed in another way this -
that is, the reduction of 15 per cent in fluoride levels -
would equate approximately to 215 more affected teeth per thousand 12 year-old children after a period of 5 to 10 years.
The committee goes on to say:
However until research is conducted on this issue Australians like the rest of the world can only speculate on the effects of such a measure.
That is, reducing fluoride levels to half their present levels in the ACT. It continues:
With the acknowledged effects of other sources of fluoride, the comparatively high socio economic position of the population and the quality of dental services in the ACT, the Committee believes that a reduction of fluoride concentration to 0.5 ppm would be unlikely to have a significant impact on dental health.
I do not see in this report the basis for that statement. I see discussions of possible sources of support for that view, but I do not see any conclusively proven view established either on the basis of any research directly into that question or on the basis of any sifting of medical and scientific information by other researchers, a peak body or some other equivalent organisation, to establish the case for reducing the level of fluoride from one part per million to half of that level. It appears to
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