Abstain from sugar and fluoride

Gosford Council seems to be intent on mass medication for its residents, with the addition of fluoride to the water.

This is despite the fact that there is evidence to show that some people are allergic to it and that even others will be adversely affected by it, particularly young children.

This was demonstrated in the latest expert review in the USA in 2006 where even 1mg of fluoride per litre of water was found to affect people for instance who have an iodine deficiency.

UNICEF rates Australia as one of the countries with the highest degree of dental fluorosis.

Fluoride is hardly present in a mother's milk, so it cannot be said to be essential to good health or teeth.

The fluoride we will be drinking is after all a waste product from the alumina industry.

That industry must be very pleased to be paid for its waste.

If Council is honest in its desire to do the right thing, surely they should be agreeable to some research being done to prove that they are using our money wisely.

An independent research study should be set up immediately, to assess the health of a group of residents at the beginning of the medication and then at regular intervals afterwards.

If this is thought to be too expensive, then surely the testing of urine samples to check the amount of fluoride in the body should not be too costly.

At present we have no Australian research.

Since we are to have this fluoride inside our body, we are surely entitled to know just what effect it will have on all parts of our body.

Gosford could be the first authority to set up this research.

Absorbing fluoride into our bodies in varying amounts, dependent on how much water we drink is surely a very serious matter.

We will receive even more fluoride if we use our water on our vegetable gardens and do we know the effect this chemical has on the soil and on our native plants and animals?

If Gosford Council is really interested in our health I would have thought that a program telling us to abstain from too much sugar would be far more beneficial to our teeth and our general health but perhaps the sugar industry is too powerful an opponent.

Margaret Lund Woy Woy Bay