Shhh… Fluoride Quietly Reduced in Auckland Water!
Auckland Council's water supplier Watercare has quietly gone about
reducing the level of fluoride [1] in Auckland's tap water. Without
announcement or fanfare from Watercare or Auckland Council, the
clandestine move was instead included in an Information Report
[1]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 [2] (DHHS) 2015 directive of a
maximum target level of 0.7ppm. Watercare records [3]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 on fluoride'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) [4]
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 [1] from Watercare to Auckland Council
stating that the target fluoride concentration is 0.7ppm. See Watercare
records from 2013-2014 [5] showing fluoride levels exceeding the MOH mid
target of 0.85ppm.
ENDS