20 Reasons why Water Fluoridation should be Stopped in Ireland

 

  1. Water Fluoridation Actually Damages Teeth; Fluoride consumption results in an adverse health effect on teeth called Dental Fluorosis, which is unsightly ‘structural’ damage to the teeth, caused during the formation of the tooth enamel. It is widely acknowledged that about 50% of a population living in a fluoridated community suffer from at least a mild form of Dental Fluorosis (The World Health Organisation, The York Report). Professor Dennis O’Mullane of University College Cork stated in 1996 (and re-iterated the point on TV3’s recent Water Fluoridation Debate), that ‘we find that approximately 50% of a population living in a fluoridated community have this very mild, very questionable change in the appearance of the enamel’. Dental Fluorosis is clear evidence of fluoride poisoning in humans. To find out more about Dental Fluorosis; What is Dental Fluorosis?, Fluorosis register/pictures.
  2. Water Fluoridation Causes Serious Health Damage; If fluoride can cause damage to the teeth, and the teeth are the only visible part of the skeleton, it must also be damaging other parts of the body? Yes…there are hundreds of medical and scientific studies showing links between water fluoridation at 1ppm and serious health problems such as hip fractures, bone cancer, thyroid cancer, irritable bowel syndrome and allergy. Water fluoridation has also been proven to cause skeletal fluorosis, to contribute to osteoporosis, decreased fertility, and to have neurotoxic effects in the brain. A recent edition of the Irish Medical Journal published a collation of just some of the international peer reviewed studies showing fluoride damage in humans. Irish Medical Journal editorial.
  3. The Irish Government has never conducted any Health Studies in 37 years; Despite it being stipulated in the 1960’s Health Act that it is the Minister for Health’s duty to conduct research on the general health effects of water fluoridation on the Irish population, no Minister for Health has ever conducted any such research in 37 years, thereby ignoring their statutory requirements. Despite having never conducted research to prove that water fluoridation is safe on the Irish population, the Department of Health refuses to acknowledge the validity of the above research showing the harmful effects of water fluoridation. The Minister for Health exclaimed on RTE’s Primetime in February 2000 that Ireland is too small to conduct any such research.‘Minister’s Excuse Hard to Swallow’.
  4. 98% of Europe has said NO to Fluoridation; Although the Irish government refuses to ignore these serious health warnings, most European countries have acknowledged them. Ireland now stands as the only country mandating the addition of the toxic substance ‘fluoride’ to the population’s drinking water supplies. Virtually every European country has either stopped, rejected outright or even banned water fluoridation as a health programme due to its ‘known’ and ‘unknown’ health effects.What Europe says about water fluoridation.
  5. Fluoride is a Very Toxic Substance, now Labelled a ‘poison’ in the US; According to the US EPA, fluoride has a toxicity rating higher than lead, and is just marginally less toxic than arsenic. Since 1997 in the US the Food and Drugs Administration has insisted that all toothpastes must comes with a ‘poison warning’ informing those who swallow more than is used for brushing to contact a Poison control Centre’.
  6. Fluoride is a Cumulative Poison; Approximately 50% of the fluoride that we ingest daily (assuming healthy kidney function) is excreted. The rest accumulates in the bone, pineal gland (Luke 1998), and other tissues.
  7. The Fluoride used in Irish Water Supplies is a corrosive acid, which originates as a waste product from the European Fertiliser Industry; The Fluoride used in Irish water is not the ‘Sodium Fluoride’ that is used in toothpastes, it is a much more highly toxic variant. The Eastern Region Health Authority spends £400,000 purchasing a highly corrosive chemical called ‘hydrofluosilicic acid’ from the importers Albatros Fertilizers in New Ross, Co. Wexford to fluoridate 73% of Irelands drinking water supplies. It is a chemical cocktail containing trace amounts of lead, arsenic, antimony, phosphorous and chromium. This substance is imported from a factory in Holland, a country which stopped water fluoridation in 1976 and promptly re-wrote its own constitution to prohibit the use of the public’s drinking water supplies to be used to deliver any drug or chemical to its population. Albatros Fertilizers sales specification.
  8. The Company that sells this Hydrofluosilicic Acid to Ireland is owned by a European Government that will not add the chemical to its own population’s drinking water supply due to the health risks; The European Chemical Company that sells this acid to Ireland, Kemira Chemicals, is owned by the government of Finland. However Finland stopped its own fluoridation programme in 1992 when heath studies identified links between water fluoridation and osteoporosis. The government of Finland however sells us a toxic waste product that the Irish government adds to the drinking water supplies of the population at a rate of 2000 gallons per day.
  9. Department of Health has proven that it does not know what toxic substances are in this Hydrofluosilicic acid; In March 2000 Green Party TD John Gormley asked the Minister for Health Micheal Martin TD whether there was any Chromium present in the hydrofluosilicic acid. The Minister said that there wasn’t any chromium in the acid. However in November 2000 the Minister for Health had to apologise to John Gormley because he acknowledged that the Department of Health had subsequently tested the acid, and now knew that there was chromium present. Speaking about the Minister’s response on TV3’s 20/20 Special on the Water Fluoridation Debate, John Gormley insisted that ‘this doesn’t inspire confidence, and you begin to realise that they don’t even know what’s in the stuff". Minister Misleads the Dail /Chemical Analysis.
  10. The Irish Medicines Board has never regulated Hydrofluosilicic acid for use as a medicine in Ireland; According to the Irish Medicines Board, which is Ireland’s drugs and medicines regulatory authority, hydrofluosilicic has never been registered as a medicine in Ireland, and has therefore never been proven safe nor effective as a medicinal product for administering to the entire Irish population.
  11. Irish only ranks 6th in Europe for dental health quality; Despite that fact that Ireland is the only country in Europe to fluoridate most of its population (73%), we rate only 6th in Europe in dental care. Apart from the UK, the countries that are ahead of us, do NOT fluoridate their drinking water supplies. There have never been any double-blind studies proving the effectiveness of water fluoridation.
  12. Countries that have stopped water fluoridation have seen ‘no increase’ in the rate of dental caries; The Department of Health has claimed that if they stopped water fluoridation there would be a massive increase in the rate of dental caries in Ireland. However numerous studies from countries that have stopped water fluoridation around the world show that there is NO increase in dental decay after the cessation of water fluoridation. Water Fluoridation does not work/New Zealand shows water fluoridation has no impact on decay levels.
  13. Fluoride does not need to be swallowed to be of benefit; When water fluoridation started in the 1950’s it was thought that its benefit was by systemically swallowing it. However in recent years international dental researchers have acknowledged that fluoride actually works topically on the surface of the teeth. Therefore the Irish population have been unnecessarily swallowing a substance due to inaccurate and incomplete scientific research. This revelation has resulted in former promoters of water fluoridation (such as Dr. Hardy Limeback, Head of Preventive Dentistry in University of Toronto) changing their minds on the issue, calling for a halting to this antiquated health programme. Dr. Gerard Gavin, Chief Dental Officer for the Department of Health and Children conceded on TV3 20/20’s Water Fluoridation Debate that ‘fluoride’s main benefit is through a topical action’. Therefore there is NO scientific or logical reason for the Irish population to be forced to ingest fluoride.
  14. We are Getting Fluoride from every Product Produced using the Irish Water Supply; As pointed out by Walter Graham (Northern Ireland’s Councils Against Fluoridation) on TV3’s Water Fluoridation Debate, ‘once it’s in the water system, it’s also in your soup, if it’s in the water it’s also in your beer, if it’s in the water it’s also in your boiled potatoes, it’s in everything that is produced or manufactured using that water supply, so you are getting an increased amount from all these other sources, but that is not the only source you get fluoride from…you also get fluoride from a large number of pharmaceutical products like your tooth paste, mouthwashes.’ The Department of Health has no knowledge of how much fluoride Irish people are actually consuming, and have never tried to educate people about overdosing on the chemical. If 50% of the population show signs of dental fluorosis, this is a clear sign of people overdosing on fluoride.
  15. Water Fluoridation is Medication Prescribed by Thirst; the entire Irish population gets Fluoride irrespective of the quality of their teeth, and irrespective of their tolerance to fluoride; The Department of Health claim that water fluoridation is an ‘equitable health policy’, because everyone gets it. However according to the US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR, 1993) some people appear to be particularly vulnerable to fluoride’s toxic effects, including: the elderly, people with poor kidney functions, and those who suffer from malnutrition (eg calcium, magnesium, vitamin C and vitamin D deficiencies and protein poor diets). Therefore some people will be more prone to its toxic effects than others. Irish dentist Dr. Don Mac Auley recently highlighted the unscientific nature of this so called ‘equitable heath policy’ on TV3’s Water Fluoridation Debate when he said that ‘when I prescribe medication for a patient I know the patients age or weight, I know their medical history, I know whether or not they are allergic to a drug. When you consider water fluoridation, its purely prescribed on thirst. The individual, you don’t know the individual’s weight or age, they don’t know the individual’s medical history, that is they don’t know if they are taking other drugs, you don’t know if there is an underlying medical condition. And finally and very importantly, you don’t know if that individual is allergic to fluoride or not.… You can consider this as a very crude method of medication, it’s very unscientific.’
  16. The Irish government insists that the whole population be exposed to fluoride in their water because they have evidence that some people in Ireland do not brush their teeth properly; Speaking on TV3’s Water Fluoridation Debate in January 2001, Dr. Gerard Gavin, Chief Dental Officer responded to the question on whether if someone who brushes their teeth twice a day needs water fluoridation, by saying, ‘Well that is the question, right, but our evidence is that in this country that our tooth brushing habits are way behind European norms, European standards, and you’ve also got the issue of compliance, and as I was saying at some time in the future if we can change both our eating habits and also our prevention habits in terms of how we look after our teeth then we may not need water fluoridation in the future’. An entire population should not be exposed to a toxic waste chemical purely because some people in that population do not brush their teeth to very high standards. For more from TV3’s Water Fluoridation Debate.
  17. The Irish Government is ignoring the ‘Precautionary Principle’; The precautionary principle underlines the fact that you should not proceed with a health programme if there is even a possibility of adverse health effects. There is now enough evidence to not just stop water fluoridation, but to ban it in Ireland. However the government seem intent on waiting until there is 100% conclusive evidence of harm before they stop fluoridating the water, and therefore are not just ignoring the precautionary principle, but in the coming year are actually planning to roll out this controversial health programme to parts of the country that are currently not covered. Are You Next ?
  18. The Government is Ignoring the Demands of the People - Five County Councils have said NO to Water Fluoridation; Although according to the 1960’s Health Act, local county councils are not allowed to make the decision on whether they want to fluoridate the water supplies or not (ie. It is mandated by law), in the past 18 months 5 county councils (Dublin Corporation, Sligo, Donegal, Leitrim and Clare) have all voted to either stop water fluoridation or at least be allowed to make the decision themselves, reflecting the genuine concerns of the populations living in these areas. Despite these councils’ explicit opposition to this mandatory health programme, the Department of Health insists that these councils continue fluoridating the populations’ drinking water supplies. Co.Councils call for an end to water fluoridation.
  19. Ireland’s Water Fluoridation Policy Contravenes a Major European Human Rights Convention; The 1997 Council of Europe’s Convention of Human Rights and Biomedicine highlights that a government cannot give a person a medicine without that persons consent, and can only proceed after informing them of the reason for the medical intervention, and after informing them of any possible health risks. Whilst 23 European countries have signed this convention since 1997, the Irish government has not done so. Read more about the Convention on Human Rights and BioMedicine. ‘Ireland’s Water Fluoridation policy Infringes a Major European Human Rights Convention’.
  20. Water Fluoridation is Unethical, Immoral, Unnecessary and Undemocratic; Irelands 37 year old water fluoridation policy should be stopped immediately.