Letter to the Editor, Tuesday April 21, 2015

No risk

The Royal Society of New Zealand and the Office of the Prime Minister's chief science advisor have stated that there are "no negative health risks" from imbibing fluoridated water. Well, I hate to be a bore, but I have a chemical sensitivity to fluoride that was diagnosed by a practicing New Zealand GP.

While an allergy is an overreaction to harmless substances, and is curable, a chemical sensitivity is an overreaction to harmful substances and there's no cure, only avoidance.

I lived in fluoridated Wellington for over 20 years and developed a number of distressing symptoms that various health professionals put down to other causes, like age-related and psycho-sematic. My symptoms included skin rashes, severe itching, unpleasant digestive problems and joint and back pains. They all mysteriously cleared up during a short stay in fluoride-free Europe, and reappeared as soon as I got back.

The doctor told me that fluoride is the most powerful irritant to the human mucus membrane, and that 50 per cent of all fluoride imbibed lodges in the skeleton and organs while the rest is excreted to find its way into the ground water and air - you can check these facts. The last thing he said was, "You shouldn't even be bathing in the stuff".

New Zealand got rid of lead in petrol because it is a powerful neuro-toxin that accumulates in the human body and the environment. Fluoride is a little bit different - it's more toxic.

A New Zealand judge has decreed that fluoride is not a medication - then why is it being proposed as able to solve a health problem in Northland?

Proponents of fluoridation tell us that it's a natural substance - so is cyanide - and that one part per million is insignificant, while maintaining that it changes the toughest part of the human body, the teeth. One part per million of weed killer in irrigation water kills algae.

Fluoride cannot be filtered conventionally, and is concentrated through boiling and cooking. Local authority personnel who can't tell you how much fluoride is already in wine, grapes, black and green tea, and coffee - and whether when combined with cooking in fluoridated tap water creates a 'safe' dose or not - have no business medicating anybody, let alone infants, the elderly and those on dialysis. People can buy fluoride in toothpaste and other forms if they feel they need it.

Let us never forget that British government scientists once officially assured the British public that eating cows that had eaten other cows was 'perfectly safe'. Proponents of fluoridation will tell you that evidence like mine is anecdotal. Well, I like a good story, don't you?

MICHAEL DEE

RD1 Okaihau