Indo:Fluoride in our water: are we brushing with danger?,Mar 29

[Kino <kino@nada.buz.org>]

Fluoride in our water: are we brushing with danger? 

 SPECIAL REPORT 

 There's a growing amount of evidence linking
 fluoride to cancer, osteoporosis and genetic
 damage. Most governments in Europe have
 banned it, yet Ireland continues to add
 tooth-preserving acid to the public water supply.
 Gemma O'Doherty reports 

 Water fluoridation was once hailed as the saviour
 of our children's teeth. But since it was introduced
 four decades ago, it has been abandoned by
 almost every country in Europe. Everywhere, that
 is, except Ireland. 

 As evidence emerged linking it to cancer,
 osteoporosis and genetic damage, government
 after government condemned the practice of
 adding tooth-preserving acid to the public water
 supply as dangerous and unethical. 

 During the '70s and '80s, Sweden, Norway and
 Finland banned water fluoridation because its long
 term health and environmental effects were
 insufficiently known. 

 In 1975, Germany rejected it as ``foreign to
 nature, unnecessary, inefficient, irresponsible and
 harmful to the environment.'' 

 One year later, the Dutch rewrote their
 constitution to ensure that the practice would
 never be allowed in that country again. 

 In 1977, Denmark rejected fluoridation because
 ``no adequate studies had been carried out on the
 long-term effect on human beings.'' 

 In 1980, the Chief of Public Health in France
 declared it ``too dangerous''. 

 More recently, in 1996, 25 out of 26 councils in
 Northern Ireland voted against fluoridation of their
 drinking water. 

 In the UK, 10% of drinking water is fluoridated.
 Recent plans to extend the programme have been
 postponed following new research presented to
 the Ministry of Health on the medical side effects. 

 Today, just one country in Europe continues to
 endorse mandatory medication of the public water
 supply with fluoride. In fact, Ireland is the only
 democracy in the world which demands it by law. 

 As the Government continues to promote and
 expand the fluoridation programme throughout the
 country, it insists that the practice is perfectly safe
 and essential to the dental health of the nation. But
 as well as the many countries who refute this
 theory, opposition is growing from local authorities
 at home. 

 In the last year, Dublin City Council and Donegal
 and Sligo County Councils voted to suspend
 water fluoridation in their regions on safety
 grounds. Their motions were overruled by the
 Department of Health. 

 Although the dental profession has always actively
 supported water fluoridation, small numbers of
 dentists are beginning to question the ethics of
 dosing drinking water with a toxin whose
 long-term health effects are still largely unknown. 

 One former advocate has spent a year
 investigating fluoridation. Don Mac Auley, a
 32-year-old Dublin-based dentist, became
 concerned after a number of patients told him they
 were worried about the possible health risks of
 fluoridated water. They wanted to know why,
 when the rest of Europe was so strongly opposed
 to fluoridation, Ireland was virtually alone in
 endorsing it. 

 Like most other young dentists, Mac Auley took
 his lead from the academics who had trained him
 at college. They had taught him that fluoride was
 the most effective weapon against tooth decay and
 did not pose any risk to health. To allay his
 patients' fears, however, he promised to
 investigate the matter further. 

 He studied the volume of international medical
 literature on fluoridation and discovered there was
 another side to the issue of which he was not
 aware. Foreign research linked fluoride to hip
 fracture and bone disease, brain disorders and
 irritable bowel syndrome, conditions with a higher
 prevalence in this country than most others in the
 developed world. 

 Two years ago, 1,200 scientists, doctors and
 lawyers from the American Environmental
 Protection Agency stated their opposition to water
 fluoridation because of the body of evidence that
 indicated ``a causal link between it and cancer,
 genetic damage, neurological impairment and bone
 pathology.'' 

 There was also evidence that fluoride could
 actually lead to tooth disfigurement through
 fluorosis, a mottling or staining of the teeth that
 occurs when too much of the chemical is present
 in the body. Dentists here say up to 40% of Irish
 people suffer from dental fluorosis, although no
 research has been carried out to support their
 claims. 

 In 1995, however, the American Dental
 Association found that up to 80% of children living
 in fluoridated areas in the US and Canada had the
 condition. When this study was published,
 Canadian dental authorities conceded that fluoride
 could lead to bone and tooth destruction and
 damage overall health. 

 Some went even further. Dr Harry Limeback,
 Professor of Dentistry at Toronto University and
 consultant to the Canadian Dental Authority,
 claimed that water fluoridation had actually
 contributed to the birth of the multi-million pound
 cosmetic dentistry industry. He claimed that more
 money was now being spent treating dental
 fluorosis than would be spent on dental cavities if
 water were not fluoridated. 

 Armed with this information, Mac Auley sought
 guidance from his professional authority, the Irish
 Dental Association, and requested an overall
 picture of fluoridation in Ireland. 

 ``To my surprise, I never received a reply,'' he
 says. 

 ``I wrote two letters outlining the worries of my
 patients and stating I had a moral obligation to
 give them answers but I heard nothing. I also
 wrote to the Chief Dental Officer at the
 Department of Health and was sent a fact sheet on
 Irish dental policy and the website address of the
 American Dental Association. This provided no
 information on the situation in Ireland.''

 Mac Auley decided to use the Freedom of
 Information Act to access the information he was
 seeking. He requested details on the research that
 had been done in Ireland on the effects of fluoride
 on public health, a stipulation under the Health
 (Fluoridation of Water Supplies) Act 1960. He
 also asked for information on the type of fluoride
 used in Irish water, how much was added to the
 water supply and where it came from. 

 The Department of Health referred him to the
 regional health boards. He wrote to all eight,
 requesting the same information. 

 One week later on a Friday afternoon, he
 received a telephone call from a senior dental
 surgeon at a health board outside his locality. The
 surgeon asked him what the relevance of his
 questions were, whether he planned to publish the
 results, and most surprisingly of all, what his
 political affiliations were. 

 The health board in question has admitted these
 enquiries were made. They acknowledge it is a
 matter of regret that the situation arose and have
 apologised for any offence caused. 

 However, other influences were brought to bear
 on Mac Auley by health board officials in the form
 of further telephone calls urging him to withdraw
 his Freedom of Information request and conform
 to IDA policy. 

 ``I was completely amazed. I couldn't believe that
 the details of what I thought was a confidential
 request had been revealed. I contacted my
 solicitor who advised me to persevere with my
 enquiries.'' 

 Four weeks later, he received replies from a
 number of health boards but they were limited in
 scope. In one letter from the Southern Health
 Board, he was told to go and look in the library, if
 it was answers he wanted. 

 ``I felt there was an increasing resistance from
 officialdom to respond to my questions, but I was
 determined to get to the bottom of it.'' 

 Mac Auley decided to appeal his FOI response to
 the Information Commissioner. Earlier this month,
 after a wait of almost one year, he finally received
 answers to some of his questions, answers that
 have confirmed his fears. 

 The fluoridating agent used in drinking water here
 is hydrofluosilicic acid, a component of toxic
 waste imported from the fertiliser industry in
 Holland. Hydrofluosilicic acid is a
 non-biodegradable, highly corrosive substance,
 contaminated with a number of heavy metals
 including arsenic and lead. 

 Every year, the Irish government pays hundreds of
 thousands of pounds to the Dutch company that
 produces this acid, a substance which would
 otherwise cost vast sums of money to dispose of
 safely. 

 According to reports by the Environmental
 Protection Agency in 1997, nine per cent of all
 water supplies exceed the recommended levels of
 1mg of fluoride per litre of water. These and all
 other exceedances are illegal and impermissible. 

 Despite all the evidence which now exists about
 the dangers of fluoride to health, in 35 years of
 fluoridation, no Irish government has ever carried
 out a public health survey on its effects, even
 though it is required to under the 1960 Health
 (Fluoridation of Water Supplies) Act. When
 asked in a recent interview as to why no such
 surveys had been carried out, the Minister for
 Health, Michael Martin said that the population of
 Ireland was ``too small''. 

 Don Mac Auley is now convinced that the Irish
 public is being denied the truth about water
 fluoridation in this country. 

 ``I now have no doubt there is hidden agenda to
 reveal as little as possible about fluoridation. At
 Dental School, you are taught only one side of the
 story and if dentists don't know the full story, how
 can our patients be expected to. Water
 fluoridation is sold as the greatest preventive oral
 health measure ever devised but the story is
 biased and the indoctrination manipulative. 

 ``In my view, many dentists continue to endorse
 fluoridation simply because they do not know the
 truth. They are not told that the fluoride used here
 is toxic waste contaminated with arsenic and lead.
 They are not told there is enough fluoride in a tube
 of toothpaste to kill a small child or that, according
 to the US Environmental Protection Agency, it is
 more poisonous than lead. Yet we are expected
 to accept that a toxic waste diluted in our drinking
 water is safe.'' 

 Mac Auley has now left his former position and
 set up in private practice. He acts as an advisor to
 the Fluoride Free Water Campaign and is
 determined to educate his patients and colleagues
 about what he sees as the truth behind
 fluoridation. 

 ``The whole episode has been both shocking and
 emotionally draining. It is amazing the lengths that
 proponents of fluoridation will go to protect this
 pollutant. If the government continues to mass
 medicate the Irish public without its consent, it will
 inevitably have to face up to the consequences.
 When it does, it is my belief that the bill to the
 taxpayer will dwarf the army deafness claims.''

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