Minister‘s FLUORIDATION REPORT ignores people

Health Minister Martin has chosen the anniversary of 9/11 to release the findings of the Report of his Fluoridation Forum after delaying it for a whole year. The first review of the health effects of 40 years of fluoridation is a disappointing cop-out. The lower dosage recommendation is meaningless when there is no monitoring, no quality control and no measurement of the level of naturally occurring fluoride at the various treatment plants throughout the country.

Fluoride is implicated with skeletal fluorosis, Alzheimer’s, osteoporosis, under-active thyroid and many other diseases. In some cases the evidence of damage is overwhelming. In others the jury is still out, but for as long as it is, the precautionary principle must apply. VOICE (Voice of Irish Concern for the Environment) spokesperson Robert Pocock said, “Of all departments of government that should heed the precautionary principle, it must surely be our Irish Department of Health, so plagued is it by tribunals of enquiry into failed policies and practices”.

Ireland is only at the mid point on the European table of dental health, despite the fact, that we are now the only EU country mass medicating through our public water systems. Belgium, only last month, banned all swallowed forms of fluoride for health safety reasons.

(see also entry on 1/1/2002)