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• Water fluoridation: Councils to retain choice under Palaszczuk Government

  Queensland Health Minister Cameron Dick has ruled out mandatory fluoridation of the state’s water supplies. Mandatory fluoridation was announced by the previous Labor premier Anna Bligh in December 2007. But the Newman government put the decision in the hands of local government in December 2012, before the rollout was completed across the state. Bundaberg Regional […]

• Concerns as fluoride use drops to 79 per cent of Queenslanders

  MARK COLVIN: After six months’ unwinding many of the policies of the Newman government, Queensland’s Labor Government still won’t commit to reversing one of the more controversial of them. Campbell Newman made the fluoridation of water optional for local councils, and since then coverage has gone from 90 per cent of the population to 79 […]

• Fluoridated water comes down to freedom of choice, former Qld health minister Lawrence Springborg says

  Queensland Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg has stood by his decision as health minister under the previous LNP government to make water fluoridation optional, laying responsibility for a drop-off rate squarely at the feet of local governments. In 2012 Mr Springborg scrapped legislation that made fluoridation mandatory for towns with a population of more than 1,000. […]

• History of fluoride and the battle for Qld’s water supply

  MANDATORY fluoridation was announced by the previous Labor premier Anna Bligh in December 2007 before the Newman government put the decision in the hands of local government in December 2012, before the rollout was completed across the state. Bundaberg Regional Council was the first to opt out and was followed by at least 16 other […]

• Queensland councils abandon water fluoridation en masse, against dentists’ advice

  IF THE legacy of former Queensland Premier Peter Beattie is his famous slogan, “the smart state”, that legacy of one of his successors could be far less salubrious. Queensland: The toothless state could well one of former LNP leader Campbell Newman’s key achievements, after he, among a litany of controversial decisions in his three years […]

• Something rotten in the state of Queensland

  Queensland doctors are calling on the state government to mandate fluoride in all council water supplies, saying a decision by more than a third of the state’s councils to opt out of the practice six years ago is resulting in extensive tooth decay. Water fluoridation in Queensland was mandated by the Bligh state government in […]

• Toxic Secrets: The town that 3M built – where kids are dying of cancer

  Katie Jurek was 19 years old when she was told the osteosarcoma, an aggressive form of bone cancer, had returned. She could amputate her leg or die within three months. For the teenager with a contagious smile, love of fashion and a determined streak from the state of Minnesota in America’s upper mid-west, it was […]

• Toxic Secrets: Where the sites with PFAS contamination are near you

  On a rise surrounded by bushland in Sydney’s north-west, members of the Westleigh Rural Fire Service have spent years training, putting out blazes in preparation for the real thing. It is a peaceful spot, on the site of the old dog pound. Down the slope lies a walking trail and a creek, while the flat […]

• Doctors urge Queensland to help defeat anti-fluoride ‘conspiracy theorists’

  The Australian Medical Association says the Queensland government needs to strike a new deal with regional councils to encourage them to put fluoride back in the water supply. About 800,000 people in regional Queensland do not have fluoride added to their drinking water. That represents more than half the population outside of the urban south-east, […]

• Mandating water fluoridation in Queensland

  The Australian Dental Association – Queensland Branch (ADAQ) is calling on the Queensland Government to mandate water fluoridation in Queensland. ADAQ President, Dr Adrian Frick, says water fluoridation is “the easiest, cheapest, most effective and safest way to provide the dental health benefits of fluoridated water to the greatest number of people.” When the Water […]