Page 2703 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 1991
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Other members of the committee also recognise the point at which members of the NHMRC group realised that it was not a simple task. It was not just to endorse this report; it was to look at the implications of it. On page 115 it is stated:
While, on the available evidence, there is no justification for lowering the fluoride concentration in drinking water, public health prudence requires that this option be kept in mind in the course of future public health surveillance and evaluation.
Notice the warning sign. A majority of that committee has obviously decided to stick with one part per million, but they are putting the other side of the equation as well:
... public health prudence requires that this option be kept in mind in the course of future public health surveillance and evaluation. Whereas avoidance of excessive individual exposure in young childhood is best approached by controlling the intake of discretionary fluoride, avoidance of excessive exposure of the community to lifetime cumulation of fluoride would, if required, be best approached -
listen to this -
by reducing the concentration of fluoride in drinking water.
That comes from the NHMRC report, at page 115. There is a particular concern which I will come to again later, with my other bite of the cherry, but on page 116 it is stated:
In children, there is a need for effective control over discretionary sources of supplementary fluoride, to avoid excessive intake in some individuals.
Again, notice the warning sign. It continues:
Avoidance of high individual intake of fluoride in childhood can best be achieved by control of discretionary sources of fluoride.
That is continued. The warning that we received, from within the report, in our investigations and in other material, one of which I will refer to, was to worry about the period from 1964 to the present. In 1964, in the ACT we were operating on one part per million, but by 1991 there had been all kinds of additional, supplemental areas of fluoride intake, which was pushing the overall intake to levels well above one part per million. It is not just the
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