Is the the jury is still out regarding the safety of Fluoride? “I think it is”, agreed Dr Michael Beasley, Deputy Director of the National Poisons Centre on Radio New Zealand this week, adding “Certainly the question really is the safety of fluoride at what level?” “The dose determines a lot of what happens”, he confirms.

Fluoride Free New Zealand is pleased to hear this safety question being acknowledged by the Government’s top poisons scientist. We agree entirely that the safety of fluoridation rests on the dose a person is receiving.

This is unable to be determined when fluoride medication is provided via the public water supply. Dose depends on body weight and intake. This varies hugely between people; with diabetics, athletes and outdoor workers all consuming far more water than the average person. We are also really concerned that bottle fed babies receive a very high dose. ESR has determined they often exceed the safe dose.

Dr Beasley has stated we need more studies to determine if New Zealanders are being adversely affected. However, Fluoride Free New Zealand believes that it is already scientifically proven that there is no margin of safety to protect all New Zealanders and therefore fluoridation should stop immediately.

The recent paper in Lancet, the oldest medical journal in the World, is calling for the use of the precautionary principle to be applied until the matter of safety is resolved, based on a large number of IQ studies from three countries.

It is a pity that Dr Beasley, having acknowledged the jury is still out, misrepresents those IQ studies as being only for 4ppm fluoride upwards, and unhelpful regarding NZ, when he knows full well that many of them were at levels below 3ppm – roughly equal to the dose of 3mg/day we are getting in fluoridated NZ communities according to the Ministry of Health’s former fluoridation advisor, Dr Terry Cuttress.

We implore Dr Beasley to call for the precautionary principle to be applied, and to call for a moratorium on fluoridation until all concerns of safety are resolved.