I HAVE been visiting Oberon over the last month attending meetings with the people in Oberon who oppose fluoridation. Similar resistance was expressed in Lithgow at the time of putting fluoride into the drinking water in 2012. I detail the events that happened in Lithgow as it is in the local area with many similarities to Oberon.

At the time before fluoridation in Lithgow, the people had the benefit of having NSW Health dental clinicians carry out controlled investigation into the health of 653 children. The findings were very revealing, to say the least.

Before fluoridation, there existed in 27 per cent of the children the condition of “fluorosis”, which all authorities admit is a symptom of too much systematically ingested fluoride. Additionally, the estimations revealed in the published bulletin of NSW Health in 2010 for the DMFT (Damaged, Missing and Filled Teeth) oral health of children in Lithgow both in primary teeth and permanent teeth, were “better that the state average”. Repeat: this is before fluoride in Lithgow compared to 40 years of fluoridation in most of NSW.

Consequently, to the health authorities it mattered not that adding even more fluoride to the children would increase “fluorosis”, ultimately causing more oral and other health issues. Note: dentists increased in Lithgow after fluoridation.

One must ask, why did these children need more fluoride? And why did the dentists and health representatives years before claim that the Lithgow children had very bad teeth? I note that this is now happening in Oberon, and without the benefit of clinical studies. However, other studies done in our local area have revealed very little difference in the DMFT.

Examples of Bathurst and Orange and Lithgow reveal that the discussion centres around the amount of decay in just one tooth; the difference is expressed in that one tooth. For example, no fluoride before 2012 for Lithgow was 0.6 DMFT and for Bathurst and Orange it was 0.29 and 0.33 respectively.

What is to be observed is that the decay in the fluoridated towns is still there. It was only reduced by half in one tooth. That is why dentists will claim they have reduced the decay by 50 per cent and that decay in unfluoridated areas is double. But they talk about the reduction of decay in one tooth. The NSW public health bulletin also states the DMFT is 0.88, with western Sydney at 1.7 (two teeth) and fluoridated for 40-plus years in most cases.

Decay in one tooth soon changes, in adults, to 15 or so teeth, and onto old age some will lose all their teeth at 75 on. So much for the power of fluoride as a remedy.

This brings us to the other sources of this same poison and being a poison, the dose consumed should be closely monitored. In the case of fluoride, this is not investigated, so if you drink more water, you get more poison. But it is not isolated to water, it is in your food, in anaesthetics, egg powder, in all black teas, green teas, white teas, and in large amounts in instant tea, meat, all of which will be more than you are getting in the water.

So, the smart authorities will claim that there is no harm from levels in the water. This avoids the computation of other sources, of which I have stated, contains more fluoride than in the water and being a poison, no one knows how much, or why it is not being studied and included.

This is a matter of dire importance. I believe the products are not properly certified for human consumption; there are no toxicology or clinical trials ever done on this poison. Fluoride is a remarkable industrial chemical. It has hundreds of uses with more being discovered every year. Farmers use many types of fluoride, steel, glass and ceramic use fluoride, welders use fluoride on rods and pastes, paint can have fluoride, plastics can contain fluoride, and they can all end up in the human body in the form of an ion in blood and bone, brain and kidney, thyroid and eyes, with more being used every year.

Australian authorities have limited ubiquity data, and no health studies on Australian people for fluoride. No wonder there are those who question the use of fluoride. The authorities should be looking at synergistic interactions of fluoride and aluminium, another product that has not had toxicology study or clinical trial in the US or Australia. This synergy is said to have implications to Alzheimer’s disease, presently without remedy or reason.

Allan Jones, Lithgow