Another boost for dentures

Press, 18 July 1979, Page 20

Another boost for dentures

Were the dental and medical professions not so publicly and whole-heartedly supporters of fluoridation of water supplies, the Christchurch City Council’s failure to approve fluoridation on Monday evening might have been suspected of being a way to keep the dentists’ chairs filled. The council’s decision was, of course, a guarantee of just that: but it was not a plot to that end.

Christchurch’s water supply has insufficient fluoride in it to maintain a reasonable and readily attainable level of dental health. The majority of councillors simply do not want to do anything about it. The public should be demanding a better deal and the most

economical deal, and that is fluoridation. Until people are free of the fears about fluoride that have been generated by a long, earnest, and misguided campaign against this successful health measure, sufficient councillors are not likely to be persuaded.

Monday evening’s vote, however, has ensured the persistence of a bad dental record in Christchurch and the case for fluoridation can only be reinforced by such evidence. The vote has also made certain that plenty of dentists will be kept in business and no less keen to urge a healthier water supply. For the time being the battle will have to be conducted in the surgeries, not around the city’s council table.