Rudman's city: Board tries to save kids from fluoride ignorance

By BRIAN RUDMAN

Great news for the kids of Onehunga. On Wednesday night, the local Maungakiekie Community Board voted 5-2 in favour of joining the rest of the city in adding fluoride to their public water supply.

The two against were Auckland City councillor Catherine Harland and board deputy chairman Geoff Abbot.

The motion said the board was recommending this course of action to the March 7 meeting of the city's works committee "because in our view fluoridation has a clear and substantial public health benefit, particularly for children, considering the socio-economic area we live in."

Happily, my fears that the politicians might have been swayed by the skewed results of the council's non-binding "referendum" were misplaced.

What I suspect did save the day was the results of a random telephone poll of Onehunga voters, presented to Wednesday's meeting by Auckland District Health Board adviser Nicola Young.

This revealed that in the August 2000 poll of 282 residents, 48 per cent were for fluoridation, 21 per cent were against and 30 per cent said they didn't know.

This was the reverse of the council's National Research Bureau postal poll, where, in a 34 per cent return of ballot papers, 62 per cent were against fluoridation and 33 per cent were in favour.

The differences between the two results, to say nothing of the public confusion and ignorance revealed by the Auckland Healthcare-funded poll, strengthen my belief that public health decisions are too important to be left to referendums or opinion polls.

What stands out in the phone poll result is the widespread ignorance. The authors diplomatically note that "appreciable gaps were identified in this community's knowledge on fluoridation with important differences based on ethnicity and age demonstrated."

That, I'm afraid, is putting it mildly. Asked if they knew the reasons for fluoridating water, 40 per cent of the business respondents and 22 per cent of the residents said they did not.

Asked if their non-fluoridated water was fluoridated, 26 per cent of residents and 22 per cent of businesses incorrectly said it was. Only 27 per cent of residents and 10 per cent of businesses got it right. The rest confessed not knowing.

Ignorance was greatest among the young (18-44) and among the ethnic groups which other research has shown would most benefit.

Only 39 per cent of Pacific Islanders knew the reasons for fluoridating, compared with 50 per cent of Asians and others, 70 per cent of Maori and 90 per cent of Europeans.

Asked if there were any health benefits, 73 per cent of Europeans said there were, compared with 63 per cent of Maori, 42 per cent of Asians and 33 per cent of Pacific Islanders.

As for any health hazards, 28 per cent of Europeans and 37 per cent of Maori said yes, along with just 6 per cent of Pacific Islanders and 4 per cent of Asians.

The reverse side of this is that 80 per cent of Pacific Islanders just did not know.

As researcher Lynette Holbrook, from the Institute of Food Nutrition and Human Health at Massey University, observes: "The Pacific adults whose children might benefit most have the least knowledge on the topic."

The widespread ignorance revealed in this survey exposes the failure of public health officials to sell the fluoride message. It also underlines that any referendum on the issue will be about matters other than the merits of this invisible and tasteless additive to the water supply.

Despite the widespread ignorance - or perhaps because of it - 68 per cent of the telephone poll participants reckon fluoridation should be decided by local referendum.

They said that last August. However, just four months later Onehunga voters were given the opportunity to vote in such a poll and only 34 per cent bothered.

Meanwhile, the kids' teeth continue to rot.