Terrorism Has a New Name

At times, living in Australia is like having a direct window to the past. Case-in-point, a number of water suppliers around Australia are only now getting around to adding fluoride to drinking water. Back in 2007, I had a post on Queensland's coming-of-age with fluoride. Now, it's Geelong's turn. Barwon Water, which provides water to Geelong (70 km to Melbourne's west) is set to begin adding fluoride to the water supply this week. Enter the dreaded anti-fluoride terrorists. According to The Age:

"Anti-fluoride activists have also threatened to blow up Barwon Water's treatment plants as the authority begins on Monday adding fluoride to the water supply in Geelong, 70 kilometres southwest of Melbourne. The Department of Human Services (DHS) received a threatening letter in the mail last week. All three threats are being investigated by police. A government spokeswoman said Ms Neville, who is the member for Bellarine, returned home on Saturday night to find the bottle of water and a note on her front verandah. It read: 'We're going to kill you, bitch'."

As I've said many times before on this blog, you can't make this stuff up.

Queensland Moves into the mid-20th Century

The Premire of Queensland announced today that the state would step up and start adding fluoride to the water supply over the opposition of the small, but apparently powerful, anti-fluoridation lobby. According to The Australian,

"Townsville is Queensland's only city with fluoridated water; it was introduced in 1964. The north Queensland centre now has 65 per cent lower tooth decay rates in children than Brisbane."

Hard to believe it took 40 years for that little real world experiment to get the ball rolling. But then, this is also the state that refuses to adopt daylight savings time. Skeptical people those Queenslanders. Kind of like Texans.