Waipā District Council has been ordered to add fluoride to Cambridge water supplies. Last week anti-fluoride campaigners introduced American lawyer Michael Connett to underline their opposition – to an audience that, bar one, appeared to need no convincing.
US lawyer Michael Connett, left, with Fluoride Free NZ’s Kane Titchener, before the meeting got underway. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
Waipā District Council should join other councils in a legal challenge against the Ministry of Health edict to add fluoride to Cambridge drinking water, says campaigning US lawyer Michael Connett.
Asked by The News what advice he would give the capacity crowd who attended a public meeting in Cambridge Town Hall last week, Connett said Waipā could potentially join Rotorua Lakes, Tauranga and Whangārei in a legal challenge against the edict.
“It should be a decision for this community. This is not just a problem in Cambridge. It’s a problem in other areas. This is a national problem right now.”
Prior to 2021, local authorities decided whether to add fluoride. Legislation changed that year, supported by most councils, to the director-general of health.
Waipā has never had community water fluoridation and was ordered in 2022 to do so in Cambridge.
The council has already begun costings, design and a timeline for the work. Part of the funding, about $480,000 for the capital works, will come from the ministry. The amount of any funding for capital works has not yet been confirmed.
The work is expected to take nine months and once implemented cost Cambridge ratepayers $130,000 a year to put fluoride in the water.
A member of the crowd with young children told the crowd they all had beautiful teeth despite having no fluoride at the Michael Connett Fluoride Free meeting in Cambridge. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
Connett won a legal battle against fluoridation in the United States last year, in which the court had found scientifically credible evidence establishing that fluoride poses a risk to human health.
“It is associated with a reduction in the IQ of children and is hazardous at dosages that are far too close to fluoride levels in the drinking water of the United States,” the ruling said.
Connett spent some time discussing neurotoxicity, crippling skeletal fluorosis and severe dental fluorosis with the crowd.
“The next chapter in all of this is yours to write in New Zealand,” he added.
“I have met over the past few days with council representatives from Whangārei, Tauranga, Rotorua, and there is deep concern about stopping fluoridation. They are being pressured by the Ministry of Health,” Connett said.
Another shot of the size of the crowd at Michael Connett’s Fluoride Free meeting in the Cambridge Town Hall. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
While there were half a dozen empty seats in the town hall at the start of the meeting, there were more than a dozen people left standing at the back of the room as Fluoride Free NZ campaigner Kane Titchener introduced Connett.
Titchener, deputy chair of Te Awamutu-Kihikihi Community Board, said Cambridge was on a precipice as the council prepared to obey the Ministry of Health.
At the end of the meeting, he told the crowd he planned to present a petition on the matter to Deputy Prime Minister and New Zealand First leader Winston Peters early this week.
The News has sought comment from Waipā District Council but it has previously said it would be an offence under the Health Act to ignore the directive.
See: Dental expert bemoans ‘truth decay’
Fluoride Risks ended with US lawyer Michael Connett, left, taking questions while watching on from left are Sean O’Brien, who provided a musical interlude before the meeting which included Neil Young’s Heart of Gold, and Kane Titchener from Fluoride Free NZ. Photo: Mary Anne Gill.
A crowd of about 200 people at the Michael Connett Fluoride Free meeting in Cambridge Town Hall. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
