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Leading Australian medical experts say water fluoridation is safe
21 June 2006
Water fluoridation is safe and effective, according to Australian of the Year Professor Ian Frazer and leading Australian medical professionals including 2005 Senior Queenslander Professor John Pearn, medical commentators Dr Gino Pecoraro and Dr Geraldine Moses, and Australian Medical Association Queensland President Dr Zelle Hodge.
The informed and credible opinions of medical professionals of this calibre are outlined on www.fluoridationqld.com and endorse water fluoridation as a safe means of improving oral health.
Australian Dental Association Queensland Branch President Dr Robert McCray said ordinary Queenslanders need to be reassured about the safety of water fluoridation because of the scaremongering and misinformation spread by anti-fluoridationists who are disingenuously and selectively quoting statistics to scare the public around to their distorted views.
“Dentists and doctors support water fluoridation at the optimal level of less than 1ppm because it has been proven, over decades of use in all other Australian states, to be a safe, easy and effective defence against tooth decay and is superior to the fluoride-tablet alternative,” Dr McCray said.
“Water fluoridation is the minor adjustment of a compound that occurs naturally in water and has been proven to strengthen teeth against decay. It is outrageous that a relatively small number of ill-informed quasi-health experts continue to be allowed to derail public debate on this issue.”
“It is morally repugnant that a few unwilling people continue to impose their views on this state, and leave generations of Queenslanders without this simple public health measure, endorsed by 100 leading health and scientific groups including the World Health Organisation.”
Professor Pearn, as Professor of Paediatrics & Child Health at The Royal Brisbane Hospital said it is “shameful” that only five percent of Queensland children have the privilege and protection of correctly-adjusted fluoridation levels in their domestic water supplies.
Professor Frazer, as an advocate for water fluoridation on the www.fluoridationqld.com website, says “the evidence overwhelmingly supports the safety and effectiveness of water fluoridation”.
On the website, Professor Pearn says: “75 percent of Australian children have the privilege and protection of correctly-adjusted fluoridation levels in their domestic water supplies; but regretfully and shamefully, only five percent of Queensland children are similarly protected.”
But despite scientific endorsement for water fluoridation at this high level, the anti-fluoridationists continue to confuse ordinary people who are not in a position to properly evaluate the misinformation and misrepresentations contained in the anti-fluoride propaganda, Dr McCray said.
“The voice of reason seems unable to prevail and it may be that Health Minister Stephen Robertson and Premier Peter Beattie must show further leadership on this issue,” Dr McCray said.
The ADAQ has established www.fluoridationqld.com to provide simple and scientifically sound information on fluoridation, and as a vehicle to enable ordinary Queenslanders, the majority of whom are in favour of fluoridation, to register their support for this safe oral health benefit.”
All of the information included on this web site is accurate to the best of knowledge of the Australian Dental Association (Queensland Branch). To make the text more readable for non-scientists, ADAQ has deliberately minimised attributions and links to supporting files or scientific attachments. However these sources are readily available if required and many can be found via www.health.qld.gov.au/fluoride. |
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