Fluoridation Debate - Irish 20/20


John Gormley TD Green Party		Gormley: "What has really happened in the last few years is that the internet, if you like, has managed to spawn a new debate and [fluoridation] has reemerged as a controversial issue. I think in Ireland in the last number of years, yes, it has featured on our current affairs programs and on RTE etc, but it still hasn't really asserted itself as a major political issue. Now it's beginning to do that, which is why I think the Minister set up the Forum so he can say 'Well, I'm acting on this.'"

Micheal Martin Minister for Health & Children		Martin: "The forum was set up because there was significant national debate taking place in relation to the mandatory fluoridation of our public water supplies, and we felt it was important to give all perspectives the opportunity to articulate their views."

Eamonn Gilmore TD Labour Party		Gilmore: "There isn't a great deal of confidence, I'm afraid, in committees of departmental experts. We've had departmental experts telling us that blood was safe, that various areas of food were safe, that some aspects of the environment were safe, and unfortunately their conclusions turned out to be quite unfounded or unsound in many cases. So there is a public skepticism about committees of Government experts telling us what's good for us."

Robert Jordan 20/20		20/20: "At the political level, there has also been a serious lack of confidence expressed in relation to water fluoridation. In the past 18 months, four county councils, Dublin, Sligo, Dunegal, and Leitrim, have all voted to either stop fluoridation, or at least be allowed to make the decision themselves on whether they wish to fluoridate or not, a decision that the 1960s Health Act would not allow them to make."

Eamonn Gilmore TD Labour Party		Gilmore: "The fact that some county councils have been expressing concern about it and have been voting against fluoridation, I think is reflecting a growing public concern, and a growing public doubt about fluoridation."

Dr. Robert Carton Former President U.S. EPA Headquarters Union		Carton: "They need to understand that in the [United] States the level that is considered safe was done under fraudulent conditions. I was there when the standard was written, I know the people who wrote it, and they have told me personally that they were told to rewrite the document so that [fluoride's Maximum Contaminant Level] would come out to a much higher number. So they admit that the number should have been much lower, yet they got political pressure to raise it. And this is not just my conversations with them, this is actual documents we got a hold of under the Freedom of Information Act, that show that they intended to protect policy and not public health."

Dr. Don Mac Auley Dentist		20/20: "Dr. Don Mac Auley is a dentist practicing in the Republic of Ireland who for the past two years has been trying to find out more about the fluoridation of Irish water supplies, and as a result has changed his mind about fluoridation being a positive public health policy." Mac Auley: "Until two years ago I would have described myself as very much a supporter of fluoridation. But on behalf of my patients in the last two years I've come to reinvestigate the whole issue." "I wanted to know what agent was actually being to used [to fluoridate the water]. So I required it from the Eastern Regional Health Authority which is responsible for purchasing the agent. Under the Freedom of Information Act they're actually required to respond to requests within four weeks. It took ten months to actually access this information. I had to actually take the Eastern Regional Health Authority to the Information Commissioner and then to the Ombudsman to get hold of this information. And when the information was finally released 10 months later I found that...the agent is a highly corrosive acid called hydrofluosilicic acid and that this acid is a waste product of the fertilizer industry."

		20/20: "Following his discovery of the type of fluoridation agent used in Irish water, Dr. Mac Auley tried to find out about the licensing and safety of this acid. Mac Auley: "I wrote to the Irish Medicines Board to try and find some information about this acid, whether it had been passed as a medicine and whether, more importantly, it was safe and whether it was effective. Their response said that according to them this product was never actually licensed as a medicine, it was unregistered, and according to them was never proven safe nor effective. We find this very worrying that the Irish Medicines Board, which is the top authority on drugs and medicines in this country, had never even licensed this chemical as any sort of medicine or drug." 20/20: "Despite the fact that dental caries is classified as a disease and the Irish Medicines Board regulates for all medicinal products for which claims to cure, alleviate, or prevent disease are made, hydrofluosilicic acid was not registered."

		20/20: "The Irish Governments spend about 400,000 pounds annually purchasing this hydrofluosilicic acid from the importers Albatross Fertilizers in Wexford and we use about 2,000 gallons daily in the water supplies. One of the most curious aspects about the origin of this acid is that the European chemical company that supplies Albatross with the acid, Kamira Chemicals, is mostly owned by the Government of Finland. This might not seem significant until one realizes that Finland stopped its own fluoridation program in 1992."

John Gormley TD Green Party		Gormley: "Yes the chemical in question is hydrofluosilicic acid and I asked the Minister [of Health] back in March about this. I knew from previous questions that it's a chemical derived from the fertilizer industry and I asked about the presence of chromium in it and I was told categorically there was no chromium present." "In November of this year the Minister had to correct himself and apologize to me, that he now knew that tests had been carried out showing the presence of chromium. And of course, when you get that sort of reply from the Minister and from these Departments it doesn't inspire confidence."