Judge allows unlawful directive regardless of Bill of Rights
JOINT PRESS RELEASE FROM FLUORIDE FREE NEW ZEALAND AND NEW ZEALAND DOCTORS SPEAKING OUT WITH SCIENCE.
Last week the High Court in Wellington heard the case that the Hastings District Council had implemented an unlawful directive to start fluoridation. Today Justice La Hood ruled that the council was allowed to continue because the unlawful directive was still “valid”.
This decision confirms that the High Court decision in November last year that found a Bill of Rights analysis had to be completed before any directives were issued, was meaningless in the absence of a sensible remedy.
Justice La Hood noted that Justice Radich, in his November ruling, had “already held that s 116E places a strict obligation on the Director-General to conduct a s 5 analysis and assess Bill of Rights compliance before making a direction.” Considering the Director-General did not do a section 5 analysis and has still not done so despite being ordered by the court in February this year to, makes a mockery of the whole system.
All rational, logical people have the understanding that if a government employee orders someone to do something, that is then found to be unlawful, then that order has to be rescinded. However, in February this year, Justice Radich ruled that the unlawful directives could still stand.
This leaves the country in a situation where the Director General has nothing to compel her to complete the Bill of Rights analysis: fluoridation will march on regardless in breach of the Bill of Rights Act. Any decent analysis could not possibly provide justification for forcing a dental medication, with flimsy research, when the evidence that it harms children's brains is growing by the day.
On Monday a new US Government funded study was published in JAMA Network Open found that children in Los Angeles were twice as likely to suffer from anxiety, depression or ADHD-like symptoms if their mother was exposed to fluoridated water while pregnant. The children also had significantly more problems with emotional reactivity and somatic complaints such as headaches.
This latest study represents the 10th consecutive NIH-funded study in humans finding adverse effects of fluoride on children’s developing brains. It supports and extends the findings of a study published two years ago that found increased somatic and anxiety problems in adolescents in fluoridated Cincinnati OH. The previous 8 studies were in Canada and Mexico and consistently found a lowering of IQ or an increased risk of behavioral problems like ADHD associated with early life exposure to fluoridated water or fluoridated salt.
It needs to be noted that New Zealand fluoridation levels are 20% higher than in the US and Canada. The NZ Ministry of Health recommends a target of 0.85ppm (midrange between 0.7 and 1pmm) compared to a maximum of 0.7ppm in the US and Canada.
The New Zealand Ministry of Health is ignoring all evidence and causing huge harm to the people of New Zealand. Anxiety, depression and ADHD are huge problems in New Zealand.
A study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that New Zealand has one of the highest rates of anxiety disorders among its member countries. In 2019, New Zealand had a prevalence rate of 15.4% for anxiety disorders, ranking 5th highest among the 37 OECD countries surveyed. New Zealand also has one of the highest levels of depression.
How much of New Zealand's poor health records are because the Ministry of Health clings to this outdated, unscientific, immoral practice that most of the world has rightly rejected?