Two more rulings released today find Fluoride Free New Zealand is not a reliable source of information – and MSoF president Daniel Ryan is urging Whakatane District Councillors to pay
attention to the rulings when they revisit the issue of fluoridation tomorrow.

The decisions by the Advertising Standards Authority relate to an information leaflet distributed by fluoridation opponents during November’s referendum in Thames and to their newspaper advertising at the time.

The leaflet made a number of claims such as ‘fluoride is harmful to health’ and ‘fluoridation does not reduce dental decay’, which the ASA found to be misleading and alarmist, while parts of the newspaper ads were found to unjustifiably play on consumers’ fears.

‘Fluoride Free NZ has no qualms about spreading false information,’ says Ryan. ‘This is just the latest in an ongoing series of successful complaints against FFNZ which in fact currently ranks as the 12th worst organisation in NZ for successfully upheld or settled ASA complaints; quite an achievement when taking into account the small scale of their advertising.’

Ryan says it’s disturbing that before voting narrowly in late January to remove fluoridation in the Whakatane District Council water supply, one of only four parties invited to address the council was FFNZ.

‘FFNZ is simply not a reliable source. The Advertising Standards Authority is a neutral body and it has demonstrated that you don’t need to be a scientist to see when a statement is an opinion rather than a fact.’

‘It appears some of the councillors take FFNZ’s information at face value,’ Ryan adds. ‘To be fair, opponents are slick at making their information look convincing which makes it challenging for councillors. It’s why we and so many other public health advocates keep calling on central government to give responsibility for fluoridation to the Ministry of Health.’

Meanwhile, MSoF calls on Whakatane District Councillors to be mindful of today’s ASA decisions, along with the overwhelming scientific consensus on the safety and effectiveness of fluoridation, when they meet to reconsider their decision tomorrow.

Full ASA decisions:
http://msof.nz/wp-content/uploads/ASA-complaint-15470.pdf
http://www.asa.co.nz//backend/documents/2016/02/10/15503.pdf

For more information please contact:

Dr Ken Perrott
Science advertiser, MSoF
Ken.perrott@msof.nz

Daniel Ryan
President, MSoF
Daniel.ryan@msof.nz

The post More Strikes Against the Credibility of Fluoride Free NZ as Whakatane Councillors reconsider their decision appeared first on Making Sense of Fluoride.

Open Letter to Councillors

We are to have another debate on the fluoride issue and I make no apologies for helping to make that happen because I don’t believe that we properly debated this issue last week.  I certainly wasn’t prepared because earlier the Mayor had indicated to me that he supported the Status Quo and I was happy to go along with that.

The Mayor has released an email he has sent to certain members of the public in which he attempts to explain his position.  Explaining is losing but nevertheless the Mayor explains that Councillors took into account the non-binding referendum we held in 2013 amongst other things, but doesn’t really explain why he and 5 others Councillors then chose it ignore it.

The Mayor’s position in a nutshell, appears to be that it was more important to send a message to Central Government (and avoid responsibility) than it was to do something proven to help children’s oral health and comply with the wishes of the community.

It is this aspect of the decision that concerns me most. This is not the way this Council usually makes decisions.  Normally we would consider the options and select one to be consulted on.  We could have done this for the fluoride issue but instead we chose to proceed by way of referendum.

Referendum is not a cheap option and more importantly it is not a submission process.  You can have one or the other but not both. Council has missed this point and ‘invited’ submissions from certain persons.  Again this is not good process. If you are going to consider submissions as part of the decision process then submissions need to be open to everyone not just a selected few.

The public were not able to make a submission unless they were invited. That was obviously unfair and a mistake in my view.

FFNZ didn’t show this letter.

Furthermore it was apparent that some Councillors were influenced by the submissions made on the day. This was evidenced by the questions asked and comments made around statistics that were produced at the last minute by submitters against fluoride. Remember they did this during a submission process that wasn’t open to everyone.

The way Council make decisions is well regulated by the Local Government Act and we have to be very careful as to the process we use. On the matter of process alone a judicial review of the decision of 28^th January 2016 would succeed in my view.

On the moral side of the argument we are elected to make decisions on behalf of the community and most of the time we use our own philosophy and personal views, combined with information, advice and submissions, to make a decision.  The exception to this is when we decide to call a referendum on a particular issue.  Then we are handing back some of the decision making power to the people.

There is simply no point in having a referendum if you are going to ignore the result. As an example I am against fluoride being added to the water on philosophical grounds.  I am an advocate of personal responsibility and believe that people should be responsible for their own health needs and that of their children.

But this matter went to a referendum and the wishes of the people were clear.  No matter what my personal view on this issue is, I am not arrogant enough to ignore the result.  Imagine if the results of the flag referendum, were strongly in favor of retaining the old flag but the Government decided to change to the new one anyway!

As far as I can ascertain no Council to date has ever gone against the result of a public referendum on fluoride.  Hamilton initially proceeded without one and horribly misread public opinion.  When a referendum was finally held showing the level of support they agreed to put the fluoride back.

But we can’t even hide behind the excuse that we didn’t know what the public wanted, it’s just that some of us have chosen to ignore them. If you are saying that you know better than the people of Ohope and Whakatane who supported the continuation of Fluoride in their water supply, then good luck with that!

Russell Orr   5/2/16

The post Russell Orr’s open letter to the Whakatane Council appeared first on Making Sense of Fluoride.

Making Sense of Fluoride believes Whakatane is the latest local community to pay a high price for the government’s continued lack of action on its own child health report into fluoridation.

‘Whakatane District Council has been hoodwinked by fluoridation opponents into removing this proven protection from its public water supplies,’ says making Sense of Fluoride president Daniel Ryan, ‘while the government has sat for more than 2 years on a recommendation from the widely-welcomed select committee report on child health to make fluoridation compulsory.’

The Whakatane District Council voted narrowly last week to remove fluoride from its local water supplies, despite local referendum results over 20 years that have consistently favoured fluoridation and despite the overwhelming scientific and medical consensus that fluoridation effectively improves oral health with no credible evidence of harm.

‘Fluoridation opponents are wasting an unconscionable amount of ratepayers’ money with their ongoing challenges to the settled science,’ adds Ryan. ‘Whakatane District Council’s decision follows a recent expensive and unnecessary referendum in Thames and a travesty in Hamilton that saw fluoridation ousted, then reinstated following a referendum. All these examples underline how challenging it is for local governments to have an effective public discussion when it’s clouded by ideology. The time, money and energy could be much better spent on a genuine issue.’

The 2013 child health report recommended compulsory fluoridation in public water supplies because of the benefits to children, particularly those in lower socio-economic families.

The government initially rejected the recommendation, which would require legislative change, in part because of a high court challenge that has since been settled in favour of fluoridation.

‘There are just no excuses any more for John Key’s government to keep making councils juggle the expensive and diversionary hot potato’, argues Ryan. ‘They want councils to focus on core business and be fiscally responsible – and they say they care about children’s health. With one simple measure on fluoridation they could have a really meaningful impact on all of that.’

Full 2013 child health report:
http://www.parliament.nz/en-nz/pb/sc/documents/reports/50DBSCH_SCR6007_1/inquiry-into-improving-child-health-outcomes-and-preventing

For more information, contact:

Dr Ken Perrott
Science advertiser, MSoF
Ken.perrott@msof.nz

 
Daniel Ryan
President, MSoF
Daniel.ryan@msof.nz

The post NZ government must act appeared first on Making Sense of Fluoride.