THE fluoridated water debate is not a top concern for year 12 pupils Tim Gledhill and Tom Manning of John McGlashan College. When approached for their opinion, they said they were not aware there was a fuss over fluoride.

Tim said the only thing he knew about fluoride was it was good for your teeth, it was in drinking water and it was possible to have too much or too little of it.

“I never gave it much thought,” Tim said.

If he were to choose a side of the debate, Tim said he would be pro-fluoride, since supporting healthy teeth seemed like a good idea.

“I guess you don’t need as much of it in your toothpaste because it’s in the water,” he said.

Tom said he had not heard of the debate about fluoridated water. He said if the government backed the decision to put fluoride in the water, it must have done its homework.

Fluoride has been in the Dunedin water supply since before he was born.

“It can’t be too bad if we’ve had it in the water this long without ill effects,” he said.

If fluoride was proven to harm one out of 1000 people, he said that would be too big a risk to expose people to for the sake of nice teeth. If that was the case, he would want fluoride out of the water supply. However, as it stands, he said the pros appeared to outweigh the potential risks.

CAPTION UNDER PHOTO:
John McGlashan College year 12 pupils Tom Manning (left) and Tim Gledhill show their approval of fluoride in their water supply.

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