By Kerri Molloy

The requirement for the Far North District Council to fluoridate drinking water supplies in Kerikeri and Kaitaia is intrusive, illogical and possibly illegal. It’s right to say NO.

But it’s not so simple for our local council.

New Zealand’s Director of Health Diana Sarfati is threatening district councils with huge fines if they disobey her order to fluoridate community water supplies.

In a major step however, Whangarei’s councillors took the lead, on November 28, and voted NO. View Gavin Benney putting a powerful case, against fluoridation, to his fellow councillors here.

But at this stage, the Far North District Council seems to be more compliant. It has marked June 30, 2025 as the fluoridation delivery date, in spite of historical ratepayer opposition to fluoridation.

Note that this is not without trying.

Earlier this year Far North Mayor Kahika Moko Tepania requested an extension of time on the government’s deadline on the grounds of

cost implications

potential health risks

the necessity for comprehensive community consultation.

His request was declined.

Dr Sarfat’s fluoridation ruling was inherited from COVID pandemic policy driver Sir Ashley Bloomfield. Bloomfield is now interim chief executive of ESR, New Zealand's public research organisation that focuses on a flurry of issues – ‘health, justice, environment, water and food science’. He is on record as saying: “Fluoridation is safe, affordable and effective”. Today those words have a hollow ring and are no longer credible.

Current research shows that the harm from ingested fluoride on developing brains is serious.

A US Federal Court found that fluoridation of drinking water poses an ‘unreasonable risk’ of reduced IQ in children

An updated Cochrane review of evidence concludes that adding fluoride to drinking water provides limited dental benefits.

Key messages of the new Cochrane review:

Adding fluoride to water supplies may lead to slightly less tooth decay in children’s baby teeth.

It may also lead to slightly more children being free of tooth decay.

The benefits of fluoride in water supplies may be smaller than they were before the widespread addition of fluoride to toothpaste.

And then there is the issue of Right 11 of the New Zealand Bill or Rights (the right to refuse to undergo medical treatment). There is no risk analysis proving the benefits are so large and the risks so small that it is justified to override this right.

But Dr Sarfati is pushing on regardless.

Responding to a request for official information, FNDC legal services officer Erica Cooney now says, “FNDC is working with the Public Health Agency to develop an implementation plan. This has not yet been finalised.”

It will cost $1.2 million per plant to implement fluoridation, plus an estimated $142,000 in ongoing annual costs.

The FNDC says it is working with the agency on the basis that the Ministry of Health will fully fund the cost of implementation.

In the meantime New Zealand Doctors Speaking Out with Science (NZDSOS) has praised Whangarei’s move and is encouraging other councils to do the same.

A statement on its website reads,“We are encouraged and heartened by a recent vote taken by the Whangarei District Council resolving NOT to chemically fluoridate the city’s water supply despite the direction given by the former Director General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield and now being continued by the current Director General of Health Dr Diana Sarfati.”

NZDSOS urges other councils to take a good look at the science and human rights issues involved, listen to their communities and push back against ‘overreach, community harm and commercial agreements’.

The fluoridation campaign rests on the belief that insufficient levels of fluoride occur naturally in New Zealand’s water.

Dr Safarti is apparently not persuaded by new findings about fluoride. However she is undertaking a Bill of Rights analysis of the directions to fluoridate to ensure that section 11 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 is considered.

In response to Official Information Act requests put to Dr Sarfati in October 2024, the Ministry of Health responds on her behalf, justifying the order to communities such as the Far North to press on with fluoridation. They point to a ten year old report that concluded that there were no adverse health effects of any significance from fluoridation levels used in New Zealand. Three years ago the Office of the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor claimed that the conclusions of the 2014 report remained appropriate.

The Ministry of Health’s chief science advisor is Professor Ian Town who played a central role in New Zealand’s COVID-19 pandemic response. He is part of the Evidence, Research and Innovation Directorate at the Ministry and is focused on the New Zealand Health Research Strategy.

How much fluoride a person is exposed to depends on their diet, how much water they drink, the level of fluoride in the water supply, and their oral hygiene routines.

In the USA, a Environmental Protection Agency risk assessor admitted fluoride is neurotoxic at relatively low levels.

The Ministry of Health admits that some groups may be exposed to higher levels of fluoride than that necessary to gain oral health benefits, in particular formula-fed infants living in areas with fluoridated water supplies. But it is not concerned about fluoride levels in fluoridated water supplies in New Zealand.

A law was passed in 2015, ruling that fluoride compounds are medicines when given to you in a pill but not when put in your water supply.

Fluoride tablets are no longer recommended for children younger than three years of age or for pregnant women. But we are expected to accept that it’s ok to force ingestion through community water supplies, when there is no way of assessing how much is ingested per individual according to body weight and developmental stage.

Dr Sarfati is required to consider scientific evidence on the effectiveness of adding fluoride to drinking water and whether the benefits of adding fluoride to the drinking water outweigh the financial costs.