Pambula’s character
After having read Angela George’s attack of Greg Ferguson (Letters, Magnet, 30/6), I was dumbfounded that someone who professes to be such an expert on heritage could possibly slam a community member’s view that the current supermarket proposal for Pambula was not at all sympathetic to Pambula’s heritage town character.
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Mr Ferguson convened a public meeting, attended by more than 100 local residents, to hear what the developer was proposing.
The overwhelming majority of people either didn’t want the supermarket development at all or at least wanted it to reflect the character of the town.
The developer on the night declared he was quite willing to amend the design to make it sympathetic to the heritage style of the town and he also stated he would be willing to accept changes or conditions of consent to provide connectivity to the town centre.
It appears these things have not been reflected in the DA currently before council.
To council’s credit, it deferred making a decision on the DA pending an onsite meeting to address some concerns.
Let’s hope that the changes the developer had agreed to make are high on the council’s agenda to ensure they are addressed.
Fraser Buchanan, Pambula
Fluoride of little benefit
There is a growing consensus in the medical/dental community that fluoride has little - or even no – benefit when it comes to preventing dental cavities and is potentially very harmful to children.
The fluoride added to town water is based on industrial or fertiliser toxic waste.
The most effective way to have healthy teeth is good nutrition, diligent oral hygiene and regular dental care.
Australian Bureau of Statistics’ data shows that more than half of Australian kids between the age of 6 and 10 have tooth decay; Australia has the fastest-growing rate of obesity in the world; almost half of Australian kids are overweight or obese.
All this is due to the very high consumption of sugar via soft drinks, energy bars, flavoured milks, instant breakfast drinks and sugar-coated cereals.
How is the addition of a potentially harming residue in the town water supposed to fix the damage?
Quite apart from the fact that it would be indiscriminate mass medication without public consent.
Bernard Lagarenne, Merimbula
Fluoride debate denied
Michael Standen when advocating forced fluoridation (Letters, Magnet, 30/6) should consider the letter Professor Trevor Sheldon wrote to the House of Lords after he had chaired the UK government-commissioned systematic review of fluoridation carried out by the University of York in 2000.
Prof Sheldon stated that medical and dental associations were misusing the findings of the York Review.
He specifically stated that the review did not show water fluoridation to be safe and that the quality of the research was too poor to establish with confidence whether or not there are potentially important adverse effects in addition to the high levels of fluorosis.
Prof Sheldon advised the House of Lords there was little evidence to show that water fluoridation has reduced social inequalities in dental health.
He also noted that the review team was surprised that in spite of the large number of studies carried out over several decades there is a dearth of reliable evidence with which to inform policy and that until high quality studies are undertaken providing more definite evidence, there will continue to be legitimate scientific controversy over the likely effects and costs of water fluoridation.
It appears that only people who claim that fluoridation is safe want to deny debate.
Merilyn Haines, Fluoride Action Network Australia, Pallara, Qld
