Page 2724 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 1991
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first mooted in the early years of this century, when a lower incidence of dental caries was noted in communities that had a natural occurrence of fluoride in their water supplies.
The ACT and surrounding region does not have natural fluoride occurring in its rivers and streams in appreciable quantities. So, we have been able to gauge for ourselves the effect that the addition of fluoride has had since it was first introduced to the community water supply in September 1964. In 1950 the Commonwealth Government started a school dental service in the ACT. Since that time, several generations of children have grown up with both fluoridated and unfluoridated drinking water.
I do not know about you people; but, speaking just from my family's experience, I know that I was reared in a place that had no fluoride in the water, and I have a mouth full of amalgam to demonstrate that. I had a mother who used to threaten me with a toothbrush three times a day. Of course, we looked after our teeth in our family. My children, who were reared in Sydney and in this town, with fluoride in the water, did not take that much care of their teeth - I was not as tough on them in that respect as my mother was on me - but there is just no evidence of caries. The difference is absolutely amazing; it works. And they look all right to me; they seem to be coping.
That is anecdotal, but dentists and other health professionals and parents have seen the change in the general level of dental hygiene in children in our own community. I have seen it, dentists have seen it and I think most people recognise it. The original decision in 1964 to add fluoride to Canberra's water supply was made on the recommendation of the National Health and Medical Research Council, which was then, as it is today, the nation's peak medical scientific body.
It is no wonder that the private member's Bill introduced into this Assembly in 1989 to remove fluoride from our water supply was greeted with condemnation by dentists and parents, many of whom had grown up in the pre- and post-fluoridation period and who had seen for themselves the benefits to oral health that the introduction of fluoride had brought about. As a result of the outcry, the Government legislated to have fluoride returned to the water supply on a temporary basis and the Assembly instructed the Standing Committee on Social Policy to examine the matter and report back to the Assembly.
Also, the NHMRC formed an expert working group to report on the question of fluoride. The report of the standing committee was tabled in the Assembly in February 1991 and the NHMRC report was submitted to and accepted by the 111th session of the NHMRC in June. The Assembly had legislated in February to extend the period that fluoride would remain
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