General News
24 November, 2024
‘Retain the status quo’
ANTI-fluoride campaigner Annette Sheppard has urged Cairns Regional Council to retain the status quo and keep the chemical compound out of the region’s water supply.
The former city councillor and another anti-fluoride supporter Zane Cosgrove were given 15 minutes to present their case to not add fluoride to the water network at Wednesday’s fortnightly council meeting. The gallery was packed with supporters, some waving placards.
It followed an earlier deputation by three GPs on November 6 who argued that fluoride in the water supply would vastly improve the region’s dental health.
Ms Sheppard, a former nurse, said fluoride was “highly poisonous in concentrated doses”.
She said it was ranked in toxicity between arsenic and lead.
Ms Sheppard said the scientific community was still debating the merits or otherwise of fluoride but the general consensus was it was more harmful than beneficial.
She presented a complex series of slides backed by studies and organisations, including UNICEF and Queensland Health.
“Agreement is universal that excessive fluoride intake leads to loss of calcium from the tooth matrix, aggravating cavity formation throughout life, rather than remedying it, and so causing dental fluorosis,” Ms Sheppard said.
“Dental fluorosis, which is characterised by blacked, mottled or chalky white teeth, is a clear indication of overexposure to fluoride during childhood when the teeth were developing,” she said.
“The argument is essentially one of risk-benefit, fluoride has little pre-eruptive impact on caries prevention, but presents a clear risk of fluorosis.
“We object to having our right to choose what we put into our body taken away from us when the scientific evidence shows conclusively that the premise for water fluoridation is based on flawed science.”
Ms Sheppard said the current situation was the “correct one”.
Mr Cosgrove said in 1950 the Wisconsin City Council secretly added fluoride to the water supply despite residents being overwhelmingly against it.
“The public won a vote months later to have fluoride removed from the water supply but trust was lost and ethics were called into question,” he said.
Mr Cosgrove said 75 years later water fluoridation was still being debated and discussed. He said the science was not settled on fluoride.
“The American Environmental Protection Agency has just lost a ground-breaking court case in failing to provide safe drinking water, and the national toxicity program has also determined more research is needed to determine if water fluoridation is safe,” Mr Cosgrove said.
“The Cairns GP Group are promoting ‘old science’. Sometimes the experts do get it wrong. Trust is lost once ‘experts’ omit facts and conspiracies emerge,” he said.
Mayor Amy Eden wants the decision on fluoridation to be made by the state government and the chief medical officer after the government handballed it to local government.
Almost half of residents surveyed believe fluoride should be added to Cairns’ water supply. But Cr Eden said there was no “overwhelming community support either for or against”.
As part of the 2024 Our Cairns survey, 37 per cent of the 10,000 surveyed were against the move, 48 per cent were in support, and 15 per cent were unsure.
