The Press WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1959. Polls On Fluoridation

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29061, 25 November 1959, Page 14

The Press WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1959. Polls On Fluoridation

Substantial majorities against fluoridation of municipal water supplies were a disappointing feature of Saturday’s local body polls. Fluoridation proposals were defeated wherever the

local authorities put the issues to electors—in Hamilton, Pukekohe, Dargaville, New Lynn, Dimedin, and Levin. Such widespread rejection by communities representing a fair cross-section of New Zealand’s population must arouse considerable concern among persons anxious to see New Zealand’s notorious record of dental decay among the young improved. The value of fluoridation where existing supplies are deficient has been plainly established both by the Royal Commission’s searching inquiry and by the spectacular improvement in the dental health of Hastings children after the water supply there had had fluoride added for five years. (The word " spectacular ” was chosen by the Minister of Health, Mr Mason, a man not given to extravagant language.) When the central government passed to local government re- . sponsibility for seeing that water supplies were not deficient in fluoride it was thought that local authorities would act on their own initiative. Sugges-

tions that a referendum should be compulsory before any local authority added fluoride to the water supply were rejected by the Minister of Health, who no doubt well appreciated the objections to a poll on the issue. A valid objection is that voters would be asked to decide a technical question better left to the experts. A greater objection is that a referendum would give a small minority (nftmy of whom seem to misunderstand the nature and purpose of fluoridation) opportunity to work up prejudice against an important health measure. A favourite device of persons unable to challenge the prophylactic value of fluoridation in preventing dental decay is to argue that fluoride is detrimental to health in some other way—a fallacy that has been exposed overseas, and in New Zealand by the Hastings experiment. HoTzever, persons ready to play on the public’s fears find a remarkable response in many communities in New Zealand. Authorities will have to have the courage of their convictions, fluoridate their water supplies, and provide more and more examples of the benefits to be derived—and so crush the sceptics with irrefutable evidence.