An American professor encouraged Ballarat residents to say “no to fluoridation” during a public forum at the University of Ballarat’s SMB campus last night.

Professor Paul Connett, from New York’s St Lawrence University, claimed fluoridation was ineffective, inefficient and unsafe and warned that government education campaigns promoting fluoridation were filled with “false information”.

Prof Connett’s talk comes less than a week after three of Ballarat’s leading health authorities issued a joint statement imploring the State Government to fluoridate Ballarat’s water.

Prof Connett said he had challenged the Australian Dental Association, the Department of Human Services or any relevant health authority to publicly debate him on the issue, but all had declined.

“If I was playing cricket, I am at the end of my bowling mark, fit and ready to bowl, but no one will come out and bat. They are all sitting back in the pavilion” Prof Connett told the crowd.

He revealed statistics that showed that dental fluorosis, a fluoride-induced tooth defect, was found in 50 per cent of children in fluoridated communities.

He also claimed that promotion of fluoridation was based on “second hand endorsements, not on first hand and up-to-date analysis of the scientific literature”.

“It has more to do with politics than it has to do with science,” he added.

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