FLUORIDATION OF WATER

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28150, 13 December 1956, Page 5

FLUORIDATION OF WATER

AUCKLAND EVIDENCE CONCLUDED (New Zealand Press Association) i AUCKLAND. December 12.' I Fluoridation of public water supplies! was by no means a panacea for den-, tai caries, John Ernest Hanna, retired dentist, told the Commission of Inquiry into Flouridation yesterday. For a number of years he had been the director of school dental services in Sunderland, on the north-east coast o’f England, where children’s teeth were in an appalling state, he said. i At South Shields, seven miles away, children’s teeth were excellent. Both ■ towns drew water from the same source and had the same flourine content. Therefore, he felt that other factors, hitherto undisclosed, were active in the causation of dental caries, i Mr F. C. Jordan, appearing for the! New Zealand Vigilance Association, with which were associated a number of other organisations, said it was : a case of one man’s medicine being another man’s poison. There seemed to be a very strong body of medical : evidence against the fluoridation of! public water supplies. Several letters from persons and i organisations giving evidence both for and against the scheme were received by the commission with the assurance . they would be carefully considered.

The next sitting of the commission will be in Dunedin.