News Archive

The district health board is on the lookout for a project manager to promote community water fluoridation in the Nelson Marlborough region. The new role has been created within the team who work to improve oral health in the region, alongside principal dental officer Rob Beaglehole and oral health educators. In August, the DHB confirmed […]

Water New Zealand is again calling on the government to make fluoridation of public water compulsory. The call comes with the release of a new Australian study, confirming the benefits of fluoride in drinking water. The Scientific Research Report published in the International Dental Journal in June reported on a four year study of five […]

An anti-fluoride lobby group has lost the latest round of its court-based attempts to force changes to water fluoridation practices. New Health New Zealand has been arguing that the compounds used to fluoridate water are medicines. A High Court judge said that the concentrations they were used at did not class them as medicines. New […]

To vote in the Thames fluoride referendum, make sure you’re on the electoral roll before it closes on9 September. To vote, you have to be over 18 and live within the Thames water supply area of service or be a non-resident ratepayer who owns a property in the water supply area, and be on the […]

Central government must address water flouridation [sic] as matter of urgency, the health board says. Nelson Marlborough District Health Board members questioned what could be done to get flouride added to Nelson’s water and how the matter could be progressed, at a meeting on Tuesday. “We are not sitting back and just waiting, relying on […]

The reported findings of the DHB survey on public attitudes to fluoridation released this week come as no surprise to a group of dentists who have been independently studying fluoridation science, FIND (Fluoride Information Network for Dentists). The survey of 3,500 adult New Zealanders reportedly found that only 42 percent were ‘strongly’ or ‘somewhat’ in […]

Water New Zealand calls for Government to legislate fluoridation in drinking water Water New Zealand is encouraged by a recent report written by two New Zealand dental scientists which reveals that most New Zealanders see the benefits of having fluoride in drinking water. “This report re-iterates what most sensible people know: that the science about […]

Little more than half of Kiwis believe fluoridation improves dental health, and less than half are in favour of putting it in the water supply, new research shows. Perhaps a more encouraging figure for health officials is only 10 percent of Kiwis outright deny there are any health benefits, with the rest falling into the […]

At its meeting on 5 August 2015 Council decided that the fluroride referendum day would be 5 November 2015. Council had already decided in late 2014 that a binding referendum of the electors within the Thames water supply area of service should be held before the end of 2015 to determine if fluoridation of the […]

Fluoride, considered by opponents to be a dangerous waste product and by proponents as a natural trace mineral, was taken out of our water supply most recently on July 23, 1985. Timaru woman Imelda Hitchcock led the charge to remove it. She blamed fluoride for causing a bowel problem which vanished while staying in a […]