Page 2702 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 1991
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tonight, having carefully taken our proper time, addressing the report and the proposed Bill. I hope that I may have two bites at this cherry in due course; I hope that we will also look at the proposed amendment.
I believe that the committee has come to proper conclusions. Mr Humphries has rightly quoted differences in the views of the committee members. There is no doubt that there was a range of views on the committee. For a long time I felt that the tentative conclusions of the NHMRC working party would be what I would conclude. But we now have the final draft of the NHMRC report, and we also have statements by at least one member of the NHMRC who differs with the NHMRC working group report. Furthermore, I want to make this very clear point: I am in no doubt whatsoever - and I join with the dentists in agreeing - that fluoride added in certain proportions to the water is beneficial for the prevention of dental caries. Some members of the committee and some members of the Assembly may have some doubt about that, but the bulk of the committee favours it.
But that is not the issue. It may be an excellent treatment for the prevention of dental caries, but what else is it doing? What is the beneficial dose of fluoride? What other parts of the body or elements of health might it be affecting? You cannot think only about the undoubted beneficial effect of fluoride on the prevention of dental caries, which I do not doubt for a moment. There are other factors.
Mr Humphries rightly asks - indeed, it was the central question for me at the time: How can we do better than the NHMRC? I do not believe that it is a question of our doing better. It is one of looking at the clues in the NHMRC final report, not just the working party report, and also at what essentially are disagreements within the body of the NHMRC. By the way, there are dentists, statisticians, biochemists and experts in public health on that body. We should ask: What are those clues? What should we conclude from them? I believe that we may well be doing a great many people a favour, when I get to my second bite of the cherry later in these proceedings, when we come to the question of the level of fluoride in the water. By and large, there is no question that almost all the committee members agree fundamentally with the NHMRC report.
I now want to turn to that final report in which worries are indicated. These are not heavy worries. I agree with Mr Humphries that they are saying things such as that they remain unconvinced that the amount of one part per million should be changed. There is that kind of comment in a number of parts. So, let me turn to them. I am looking at pages 114 to 117 of this draft of the final version of the report, items 9.2.1, 9.2.6, 9.2.7 and the fourth point of 9.3.3. Pages 114 to 117 contain the conclusions and recommendations and general summary. In talking to one of the members of the NHMRC, I was advised to look at those pages in particular, which I did.
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