Fluoride Free NZ, an organisation established to end water fluoridation in New Zealand, has lent its support to the campaign and provided seed funding.
Rethink Fluoride’s objective is to encourage Parliament not to proceed with the Bill and in fact use this opportunity to take a fresh look at the fluoridation issue. This is especially important today with the growing body of evidence pointing to harm from fluoride even at levels we have previously believed to be safe.
The campaign will utilise social media, public relations and networking to raise awareness about fluoridation and to promote debate about fluoridation.
“New Zealand is one of a tiny minority of countries that fluoridate drinking water, as a result of ties with the USA. Less than five percent of the world’s population is fluoridated, with more and more cities stopping every year. Unfortunately, New Zealand, as this legislation demonstrates, is apparently intent on travelling in the opposite direction.
“We believe that, were New Zealanders better aware of the facts about fluoridation, our parliamentarians would be less inclined to disregard the body of evidence against the fluoridation of our drinking water.”
Rethink Fluoride says that in March 2014 fluoride was classified as a neurotoxin in world-renowned medical journal, The Lancet.
There are now 59 human studies that have looked at fluoride exposure and effects on brain function. 52 of these show fluoride’s damaging effect: lowered IQ, behavioural deficits, nervous disorders, and memory disruption. The most recent, a landmark US Government funded, multi-million-dollar study was published in Environmental Health Perspectives in 2017. It found that children exposed to fluoride in utero, to mothers experiencing the same level of fluoride exposure as pregnant NZ women, have reduced IQ.
Now that the Supreme Court has ruled that fluoridation is compulsory medical treatment, and this breach of the Bill of Rights Act can only be justified if there are real benefits and no significant risks, it is essential that this balancing be re-evaluated in light of current scientific evidence.
“Just as we had to rethink lead in petrol, which is also estimated to have lowered IQ by 5 points, we need to rethink water fluoridation. In fact, we have more scientific evidence against fluoride than we had against both DDT and lead in petrol when they were banned.”
Rethink Fluoride believes that most people who investigate the issue of fluoridation with an open mind will conclude that, at the least, our parliamentarians should adopt the precautionary principle and suspend the fluoridation of our drinking water, and reject the current legislation.
To learn more about fluoridation, visit rethinkfluoride.org.nz or visit the Rethink Fluoride Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Rethink-Fluoride-393677071117763/.
Print 
PDF