Sleight of Hand and Paradigm Shifts

 A match box containing a  blob of mercury, a potent  neurotoxin to take home.  An ingredient of amalgam that had been inserted into a young mouth. This was the norm and reward for a visit to the school dental nurse when I was a lad.

Amalgam fillings have surreptitiously been replaced by composite materials where once they were standard practice. A ploy to divest themselves from a potentially litigious situation as they were not inert, as claimed, but emit damaging mercury vapour from their exposed surfaces.

Now the MOH and dental profession are once again cleverly divesting themselves of a practice that is failing, water fluoridation.

The penny has at last dropped and the culprit has been named – sugar.In spite of fluoridated water this dental carnage continues.  I can recall the MOH presenting overheads of sugar damaged teeth at Local Body tribunals categorically stating that a paucity of fluoride was causal to that condition.  The affected children were from the mostly fluoridated Greater Wellington catchment! The MOH has a very poor track record when it comes to toxins in the environment.