Media Release

25th February 2016

Auckland Council's water supplier Watercare has quietly gone about reducing the level of fluoride in Auckland’s tap water. Without announcement or fanfare from Watercare or Auckland Council, the clandestine move was instead included in anInformation Report prepared by Watercare for Auckland Council after the November Auckland Council Regional Strategy and Policy Committee meeting.

Auckland’s new reduced fluoride target matches the US Government's Department of Human and Health Service’s (DHHS) 2015 directive of a maximum target level of 0.7ppm. Watercare records show Auckland council has routinely been overdosing, well above even the MoH recommended level, sometimes as high as 1.2ppm.

Last year, the US DHHS lowered their recommended fluoride level, which used to be 0.7ppm - 1.2ppm, and is now a maximum of 0.7ppm. This is after the DHHS admitted that 40% of all children and 60% of African American children have dental fluorosis, which is permanent damage to teeth, caused by swallowing fluoride as teeth are developing. New Zealand children have similar rates of dental fluorosis.

This makes the New Zealand Ministry of Health’s recommendation of 0.7ppm to 1ppm (target of 0.85ppm) higher, and out of step with the USA. And of course, NZ is out of step with 96% of the world who do not add fluoridation chemicals to their water at all

Auckland Councillors are legally and morally responsible for dosing 1.4m Aucklanders daily with fluoridation chemicals. It looks as though Auckland Council is not comfortable about adding an even higher fluoride level than the US, despite what the NZ Ministry of Health says.

In December 2015, the US National Toxicology Program announced that they will be conducting a systematic review onfluoride’s neurotoxic effects.

They will also be undertaking their own new studies to determine the level of fluoride that causes neurotoxic impairment.

According to Dr Birnbaum, Ph.D. Director, NIEHS & NTP, the reduction to 0.7ppm in “part had to do with the fact that when you reviewed all of the literature there was evidence for effects occurring as low as about 2.5, maybe lower than that and going from 1.2 to 2.5 is only a margin of exposure of about 2 fold. And we know nothing, as I said before about differential susceptibility and vulnerability that occurs within the population. And that was part of the justification for taking it down to .7”. (Watch from 1h7m)

Fluoride Free NZ's Auckland representative, Kane Titchener, who presented the US HHS information at the Auckland Council Regional Strategy and Policy Committee in November, said “it is good to see that Fluoride Free NZ’s recommendation to immediately reduce the target level has been accepted by Watercare and Auckland Council. Reducing the levels are a good first step in ending fluoridation in the region”.

Read the Information report from Watercare to Auckland Council stating that the target fluoride concentration is 0.7ppm. See Watercare records from 2013-2014 showing fluoride levels exceeding the MOH mid target of 0.85ppm.

ENDS

© Scoop Media