Fluoridation in Port Macquarie-Hastings

A summary of water fluoridation in Port Macquarie-Hastings

(Please see A DETAILED CHRONOLOGY for more details).

Rejected from the start

In 1991, following ten years of intermittent discussions about water fluoridation, Hastings Council, as it was then named, held a Community Poll for enrolled residents, asking if fluoride should be added to the public water supply. The result was 71 percent against; with 20,533 voting No, and 8,198 voting Yes.

Between 1999 and 2003, various discussions took place between NSW Health representatives, Hastings Mayor and relevant council staff, regarding the need for water fluoridation to address the high local rates of dental decay. Neither the elected Councillors nor the community were informed of those discussions at the time.

In 2004, NSW Health announced a “Decay Crisis Summit” and made presentations to the four unfluoridated mid-north-coast councils – Port Macquarie-Hastings (PMHC), Kempsey, Bellingen, and Coffs Harbour.

At its May meeting, PMHC voted 6:3 to refer to NSW Health’s NSW Fluoridation of Public Water Supplies Advisory Committee the decision on whether there was a “strong case” to fluoridate. Council further resolved to accept a direction to fluoridate if given. The three other mid north coast councils made almost identical decisions during May.

What decay crisis?

Despite the results of the 1991 poll, and despite consultation being a requirement under the Fluoridation of Public Water Supplies Act and a recommendation of NHMRC, there was no consultation with the broader community prior to the May decision.

Moreover, there was no local decay crisis. According to official NSW Health dental data, the unfluoridated Mid North Coast council areas had lower rates of childhood decay than four of the five Sydney Health districts which had been 100 per cent fluoridated since the late 1960’s.

Submissions against fluoridation were made to NSW Health and the NSW Fluoridation of Public Water Supplies Advisory Committee, by residents and groups of all four mid north coast councils opposed to fluoridation. Many of those submissions were comprehensive and detailed, concerning published evidence of the lack of necessary fluoridation health studies and health warnings accumulating over decades.

Despite the detailed information submitted, the minutes of the NSW Fluoridation of Public Water Supplies Advisory Committee meeting show no record of any discussion of submissions or other relevant facts before deciding to direct the four mid north coast councils to fluoridate.

Fluoridation by force

In August 2004, the Director General of NSW Health issued a direction to fluoridate, covering each of the four presently unfluoridated MNC councils. All were instructed to commence fluoridation by 5 November 2005, unless otherwise approved by the Chief Dental Officer of the Department of Health.

In August 2005, the Development Application for construction of the Fluoridation Plant (Utility Installation) at Rosewood Road, Wauchope was approved and in early 2012, the fluoridation dosing plant was completed. The cost of $1.78 million was funded by the Health Administration Corporation on behalf of NSW Health.

In February 2012, PMHC commenced water fluoridation with hydrofluorosilicic acid, supplying Port Macquarie, Camden Haven and Wauchope.

At the May 2012 council meeting, PMHC was presented with nearly 5,000 signatures, petitioning Council to hold a Community Poll on fluoridation in conjunction with the September Council elections. At that time, PMHC was under Administration, and the Administrator referred the matter to the incoming elected council for consideration after September 2012.

NHMRC’s obfuscation and avoidance

In July 2015, after ongoing local objections to water fluoridation, PMHC resolved to “Write to the NSW Department of Health and the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) requesting detailed information on their studies and programs relating to water fluoridation”.

NHMRC responded, advising Council they have not conducted any studies to ascertain daily fluoride intake under water fluoridation, and have not funded any studies into potential adverse health effects. That was despite the NHMRC’s own fluoridation reviews from 1991 and 1999 recommending both those actions.

Following further inquiries by PMHC, in April 2016 NHMRC confirmed “there have been no projects funded prior to or after 2000 that investigated potential negative health effects from fluoride or fluoridation.” That is directly contrary to NHMRC’s own fluoridation review of 1991 that recommended NHMRC should not merely rely on research conducted by others, and should “adopt a pro-active approach by instigating its own research.”

NHMRC also confirmed that it only reviews “fluoridation” literature regarding humans (meaning they do not look at toxicological or clinical research or studies in vitro or on animals, as normally occurs with other potentially toxic substances).

NHMRC also advised in their April letter that they had specifically not considered the extensive 2006 review of ‘Fluoride in water’ conducted by the US National Research Council of the National Academies of Sciences, on the basis that it was “not a scientific study”!  

Granted, the NRC 2006 review is not a study, but a review of many significant fluoride toxicity studies and is formally recognized by the WHO in their Drinking Water Guidelines. To ignore the important data in this substantial review is a failure of duty of care, especially in view of NHMRC’s own prior recommendations and the growing evidence of potential adverse health effects from fluoride consumption.

As at 2021, more than thirty years after the 1991 NHMRC review was published, none of its recommended safety studies or precautions have been undertaken by NHMRC and none of the matters raised have been specifically investigated by them.

NSW Health playing games

In July 2015, PMHC wrote to NSW Health inquiring about comparative decay data from before and after the local commencement of fluoridation.

In August 2015 NSW Health advised PMHC that they cannot provide the information because NSW Health do not conduct “before and after” studies on fluoridation. Moreover, they cannot provide information on individual Local Government Areas due to the difficulty of “disaggregating data” – which seems absurd as all data is collected without aggregation. 

In October 2015, PMHC wrote again to NSW Health with specific questions about local dental data, evidence regarding health effects from fluoride consumption, and the procedure by which a water authority could request to lower its fluoride concentration in fluoridated water. However, Council appears to have received no reply from NSW Health to this letter and questions.

PMHC wrote again to NSW Health in March 2016 with requests including:

• local, state and national decay statistics and surveys that NSW Health had stated constitute the evidence base for NSW and nationally;
• copies of the studies into health effects that NSW Health had stated they relied upon in setting the fluoridation level;
• advice on how a water authority could apply to reduce the local fluoridation level.

Council appears to have received no reply from NSW Health to this letter and questions.

At its 18 May 2016 ordinary meeting, PMHC formally received the correspondence as above, with a staff report noting that “Council has been largely unsuccessful in its request for information on studies being done into the potential for adverse health effects from fluoride consumption.” Council resolved “to continue to gather information on this matter.”

The TGA and fluoridation – “akin to a State Secret”

In November 2018, PMHC sent a letter to the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) requesting that TGA identify the reason or reasons for the TGA declaring (on its website) that water fluoridation is not a therapeutic good. In February 2019, TGA replied, stating only that it considers fluoridated reticulated drinking water is not a therapeutic good under the Therapeutic Goods Act, and TGA will consider making its position clear in an instrument under section 7AA of the Therapeutic Goods Act, dealing with goods that TGA considers should be excluded from their assessment.

Council sought and received legal advice which opined that fluoridated reticulated drinking water does qualify as ‘therapeutic goods’, and Council is therefore in breach of the Therapeutic Goods Act by supplying fluoridated water without registration under the TG Act.

The legal advice also stated that TGA “has failed to specify its reasons for thinking that it is not a therapeutic good, and all that is known about its decision is that it was made after legal advice from the Australian Government Solicitor. That advice has never been disclosed, and is treated as something akin to a State Secret.”

PMHC formally received the legal advice at its meeting in June 2019, and provided that advice to all relevant authorities, including TGA.

Thirty years of illegal fluoridation

The legal advice confirms that from 1989 (when the Therapeutic Goods Act was introduced) until 2019, the NSW Fluoridation of Public Water Supplies Act 1957 was effectively invalid. During the whole of that period, water authorities in NSW were being forced to supply fluoridated water unwittingly and illegally, in contravention of two Acts, thereby exposing each participating council to civil and criminal penalties.

In July 2019, the Therapeutic Goods Administration published the Therapeutic Goods Amendment (Excluded Goods) Determination 2019, and ‘fluoridated reticulated drinking water’ was added to a list of goods specifically excluded from the operation of the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989 (‘TG Act’).

That decision appears to have occurred without fulfilling the requirements under the TG Act; that a chemical must be properly assessed for safety and risk to the public before making an Exclusion Order under that Act. Fluoridation has once again been given a free ride, being assisted to evade any substantial safety regulation, thereby exposing the national community to fluoride’s now well-documented potential harms.

Time for another community poll

On 19 February 2020, at an Ordinary meeting, the PMHC Mayor requested a report on the conduct of a community poll on water fluoridation, noting:

“The (legal) advice as initiated by Port Macquarie-Hastings Council and the wide publicity that followed prompted the federal government to exclude fluoridated reticulated drinking water as a therapeutic good from the Therapeutic Goods Act’s list of therapeutic goods, thus making the supply of fluoridated water legal.

“Council has an opportunity in the upcoming Local Government elections in September 2020 to conduct a poll to determine the community’s position with respect to adding fluoride to the water supply.”

At the 18 March 2020 Ordinary meeting, Council received a report on the process and cost (approx. $66,000) to conduct a Community Poll. It was resolved “That Council conduct a community poll with the following wording in conjunction with the September 2020 Local Government elections, which will read: “Would you prefer that Council stop adding fluoride (hydrofluorosilicic acid) to the public water supply?”

At its July 2020 meeting, due to a delay in local government elections due to COVID-19, Council resolved to hold the Poll one year later, on 4 September 2021.

At its April 2021 meeting, Council resolved 4:3 to proceed with the community poll, with an information sheet providing the “Yes” and “No” cases to be completed for distribution by 31 May 2021 and to invite local schools to engage in discussions with students about the topic of fluoridation and the community poll as a democratic process.

In July 2021, due to due to Covid, the local government elections (and the community poll on fluoridation) were moved to Saturday 4 December.

NSW Health declines to present the ‘No’ case

NSW Health, who forces fluoridation on the state of New South Wales, has declined to provide a paper for the ‘No’ case. How astounding that they refuse to even try to defend the fluoridation they force on whole communities. But this avoidance is typical of the many low tactics we have come to expect from fluoridation promoters.

Instead, the ‘No’ case Information Sheet has been prepared using material from NSW Health and NHMRC.

The ‘No’ case with our responses is available HERE.

NSW Health tries to hide the facts and mislead residents

On 16 July 2021, NSW Minister for Health, Mr Brad Hazzard, wrote a letter (available HERE) to the Mayor of Port Macquarie-Hastings Council, requesting Council to make various changes to the community poll question, including:

1. Remove the word “hydrofluorosilicic acid”, therefore hide from residents the actual toxic waste chemical used for fluoridation;
2. Twist the question around to a biased, suggestive, leading question;
3. Imply that fluoridation actually reduces tooth decay despite enormous scientific evidence that it is not safe and not effective in reducing tooth decay;

Watch our 3-minute video responding to Minister Hazzard’s desperate attempts to protect this unsafe, ineffective and entrenched policy.

Petition against the poll – Local doctors, dentists and health professionals raised a petition against the fluoridation poll, which FFA believes will be tabled at the September PMHC meeting. What is amazing, but unsurprising, is the lack of knowledge of fluoridation supporters regarding fluoridation, as evidenced by the Letters to the Editor or Port News and letters sent to FFA. The controversy continues.

Community poll to be replaced by questions for for NSW Health

At an Ordinary Council meeting, held on 6 September 2021, Port Macquarie-Hastings Council resolved not to hold a Community Poll on fluoridation, as had been planned in conjunction with the upcoming Local Government elections scheduled for 4 December 2021.

PMH Council also resolved to accept a public invitation by the Hon. Leslie Williams MP, for Council to engage in direct talks with NSW Health regarding water fluoridation locally, rather than hold a community poll.

These direct talks with NSW Health have been initiated by a series of detailed questions available HERE.

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Note: Original documents cited are available.