FAN Bulletin 772

March 10, 2007

Dear All,

Wonderful news this morning from Don Church who writes to tell us (see email below) that in a 64% turnout, voters in Ashburton have rejected the push to refluoridate their water. The vote went 55% to 45%. To say that no one deserved this victory more than Don Church is a huge understatement. He worked tirelessly to achieve this victory spending a lot of his own money in the process. Please send an email to Don at churchdg@xtra.co.nz congratulating him on this fabulous victory.

Any victory against fluoridation is a victory for all of us fighting this reckless policy wherever it is practiced, but this victory is especially important for the South Island of New Zealand. For a long time the promoters have had their eyes on fluoridating Christchurch. This major city is close to Ashburton and it was widely believed that if Ashburton had fallen that the local “health” authorities would have been to go for Christchurch with all guns blazing. Now their ardor must have been diminished. Again – well done Don and every one who helped him win this battle for the SECOND time.

Good news on another front – the videotape “Don’t Swallow Your Toothpaste” is back on Google video. The URL is
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5118194644870429589&hl=en

To date 187 people have clicked on this. Only 25 viewed it yesterday but that may well be due to the confusion over its availability. This 24 minute program is well worth watching . Please encourage as many people as possible to have a look. Meanwhile, another 112 people watched the Bryson video bringing the total to 21,951. The URL for the Bryson video is:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7319752042352089988&q=the+fluoride+deception

I have also received some enthusiastic responses to the televised three way debate on fluoridation I had with the Canadian Dental Association and Dr. David Locker of Toronto University. You can check this out at http://tinyurl.com/ypevuj

Paul Connett
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Message from Don Church

Hi all

Sorry I have been slow getting the Ashburton (New Zealand) referendum results to you. The results were available soon after 12:30pm today. However, with it being such a beautiful day and knowing that I couldn’t change the result, I took off early to the hills and have spent a long energetic day (extending to 8:00pm) climbing around Mt Winterslow. But even there, I didn’t get much peace. When I’m tramping and climbing alone, I always carry a cell-phone for safety and the calls from the news media when they got through (much of the time I was out of signal range) actually ran my battery flat.
The fluoridation referendum results are …We WON!

11,700 voting papers were sent out for the postal vote. 7411 votes were returned which is a 64% turnout.

The actual votes were:-
3343 for fluoridation. (45%)
4068 votes against fluoridation (55%)
Majority against fluoridation 725 votes.

The council returning officer (John Rollinson) stated to TV3 that “He is pleased to have a decisive result … the answer is clear”.
The voter “turnout” of 64% was also sufficient to confirm a mandate.

In my cellphone responses to the media (TV3 channel; 2 radio stations; Chch “Press” reporter) I stated that “I was delighted with the result and especially delighted that so many people are no longer fooled by tobacco science” I also stated to the media that, “should MoH/CDHB believe that they can attempt to fluoridate Christchurch, I will be there also and in full horsepower”. When they asked the reason for the Chch comment I stated that it is well known that the MoH/CDHB were using the Ashburton fluoridation campaign as a trial run for a later “push” in Christchurch.

I would expect the Ashburton Guardian chief reporter (Sue Newman) to be chasing me Monday morning. I suppose that it would be churlish to tell Sue that she had been backing the wrong horse with all of her shockingly biased fluoridation articles.

I will take tomorrow off to celebrate. Oops, its tomorrow already.

Thank you everybody for your help during this long drawn-out (7 month) campaign, and thank you for your congratulatory emails. Many of you obviously saw TV3 news at 6:00pm whilst I was still puffing on a mountain.

Regards
Don Church