Page 1511 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 27 September 1989
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
I personally am more swayed by the philosophical grounds that we should not medicate, or "drug" - whichever term you wish to use - the majority of the populace for a minority group. That is a Jansenite theory which I have rejected before in this Assembly. I maintain that we need to look for other measures if it can be proven that fluoride is useful for a lower age group. I mean also to take into account the very serious medical issues that may concern preventive dentistry. In my comments I try not to make light of the issue but simply to indicate that on philosophical grounds I am opposed to an element being added to our water system when we have found throughout the twentieth century that wonder drugs have other effects. We find out afterwards. Looking around, one never knows what has been at work on us over the last few years.
MR STEVENSON (12.07): The question we are debating obviously involves a raging controversy on the medical side of the matter, but the real question we should be looking at is that of individual rights. Should people have the freedom of choice to determine those drugs they so choose to take? Should it be a matter of individual rights or should they be compulsorily medicated via their drinking water, which is an essential product, although fluoride is not? One of the results of the Victorian inquiry in 1979 was that it was inconclusive that fluoride was an essential element to mankind.
We could look at why it is that approximately only one per cent of the world's population are fluoridated compared with over 70 per cent of Australians. Are we more enlightened, or is it something else? From an ethical point of view, some people in this Assembly would suggest that we do what no single doctor in Australia ethically can do and that is force any individual to take a drug against his or her will; nor can any doctor, prior to a complete and thorough medical examination, prescribe any medicine, drug or chemical to any patient. These things are covered within the medical code of ethics. Nor can doctors prescribe a medicine in an uncontrolled dose. They cannot say to you, "Yes, take the drug any time you feel thirsty". If they did, they would no doubt be struck off the medical register and, if there were a problem caused by that, no doubt they could be successfully sued. Yet some members of this Assembly recommend that we should make the decision to do that which no doctor ethically can do in this country.
The information that was given - Mr Humphries mentioned it a short while ago - by the dentists and the doctors in this town to a meeting a few days ago stated that fluoride is not a mass medication. That is simply not true. The Food and Drug Administration of America, the national body handling additives to food and water, said fluoride, a drug - that is, a medicine - is "something that aids in the prevention of dental caries". That was on page 39869 in September 1985.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .