"Not So Informed Dentists Irresponsible"

Media Release

Date: 9 October 2013

"Not So Informed Dentists Irresponsible"

The “informed” dentists who say no to fluoride should witness the trauma of teeth extractions on two-year-olds in hospital theatres and decide whether they’d wish that on their grandchildren, says retired dentist Dr Robin Bennett.

Waikato District Health Board’s Media and Communications Unit received an incensed email from Dr Bennett today, about the misleading anti-fluoridation billboards that have popped up around town.

Dr Bennett was so angered by the roadside billboards claiming “informed dentists say no to fluoride” he said he felt compelled to email the DHB’s Media and Communications director Mary Anne Gill today.
“I am a retired dentist from Gisborne, with 45 years experience,” he wrote.

“If we didn’t have fluoride in Gisborne, our hospital would have full extractions of all the teeth of many two-year-olds on a weekly basis.”

Although from Gisborne, Dr Bennett is currently staying in Hamilton and said he felt he had to demonstrate his “dismay and disbelief” at the billboards to health officials ahead of the referendum closing on Saturday.

“The irresponsibility of these people is impalpable. I wasn’t surprised when I was told the dentists aren’t even from Hamilton,” he said.

“How about some of these “informed” people come into the hospital theatre and see for themselves what this traumatic process [teeth extraction] is like, and ask themselves if they would like their grandchildren to have this done to them.”

Dr Bennett went on to say, he believes fluoride should be in all city water supplies in New Zealand.

“Taking it out of the water it is costing us too much in dollars and psychological trauma to our children. We must consider the greater population benefits.”

Hamilton’s water supply was fluoridated until June 2013 and had been for 47 years.

“The only health effect of that was less tooth decay,” said Waikato DHB Medical Officer of Health Felicity Dumble.

The Hamilton water fluoridation referendum is being held in conjunction with the Hamilton City Council elections, for which voting closes at 12noon on Saturday 12 October.

Voting papers can be dropped off at Hamilton City Council libraries and at the electoral office in Garden Place ahead of then.

For more information on the benefits of fluoride, visit www.fluoridefacts.govt.nz

ENDS

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