The following is a systematic critique of the Dept of Health’s Statement.

1.DEPARTMENT: " Fluoride is present everywhere in nature and occurs in most natural food items and in water. It is a natural and not a man-made substance... there is no difference between the fluoride added to the water and the fluoride naturally present in water"

VOICE: This is an outrageous statement. It is well-known that the naturally occurring substance is calcium fluoride (CaF) ; Calcium fluoride is very different from the substance put into Irish water which is fluorosilicic acid H2SiF6, a waste product of the fertiliser industry . The Dept never uses its correct chemical name , hydrofluorosilicic acid (1) nor does it tell us how toxic it is ; it should not

pretend otherwise as everybody needs to be aware of the toxicity of the substance put into our water.

Hydrofluorosilicic acid is the most corrosive substance known and it is transported all over Ireland

from its importer in New Ross to be dumped into our drinking water.

2. DEPARTMENT " Members of the public can therefore be assured of its safety."

VOICE: Dr Masters, in the recent US Dartmouth Study, has shown that hydroflourosilicic acid combine with lead, arsenic and other toxic ions in the body, specifically the neuro-system, leading inter alia to many forms of dysfunctional behaviour. (2) Numerous studies of fluoride damage can be viewed on the Internet -- see VOICE references in ‘The Facts about Fluoridation’ at www.voice.buz.org.

By citing only the chemical properties of ‘natural fluoride in water’ ( not hydrofluorosilicic acid in water) the Department ignores the crucial biological effects of this fluoride which is a well-known enzyme poison. Enzyme activity is at the centre of all our biological systems (3) and is therefore vital to whole body health.

In confusing these chemicals the Department ignores a crucial biological distinction between naturally-occurring calcium fluoride which is ingested through the pancreas to be excreted in the faeces whereas silicofluoride is passed through the kidney as urine.

Indeed it was the threat to people with impaired kidney function which persuaded Finland’s only fluoridated city, Kuopio, to abandon fluoridation many years ago.

3.DEPARTMENT: " Dean demonstrated that ..where water had a natural fluoride content of 1 part per million (ppm) the prevalence of dental caries was below average."

VOICE: Dean and other early researchers purporting to show the benefits of fluoride to teeth were comprehensively dismissed by Dr Philip Sutton in his book, "The Greatest Fraud: Fluoridation", 1996 (4) , yet half a century later this remains the basis of the Health Department’s fluoridation policy.

There has never been a double blind examination (ie. one in which neither investigator nor subject is aware of which subjects have been exposed to fluoridated water and which not) of the efficacy of water fluoridation. This is above all true in Ireland where such studies as there are, have been carried out only by dentists with the sole purpose of justifying the benefits of fluoride in all its forms.

4. DEPARTMENT:"Dean demonstrated ... the children did not have the mottled enamel which occurred when the level of fluoride was in excess of 2 ppm."

VOICE: According to Prof Denis O’Mullane of the Cork Dental School (5) ‘approximately 50% of children in areas where water is fluoridated suffer from dental fluorosis’ which indicates that the body is getting too much fluoride. This is not surprising when one considers that fluoride is present in Irish tap-water, tooth-pastes, vegetables and all foods & drinks prepared with fluoridated water, virtually all Irish processed foods and drinks including beer.

Again it is notable that, in describing teeth damaged by excess fluoride, the Department refers to ‘mottled enamel’ rather than the term coined by Dean --- ‘fluorosis’. Mottled enamel is health damage and it is very expensive to repair cosmetically.

5. DEPARTMENT: "In 1958 a WHO Expert Committee on Fluoridation found ‘the effectiveness, safety and practicability of fluoridation as a means of preventing dental caries’ and reaffirmed it in 1994."

VOICE: Whether issued in the 1950s or the 1990s , assurances from the WHO Expert Committee are not based on research so it will surprise no one that Europe has uniformly ignored WHO pronouncements on fluoridation of water. Ireland’s dental experts, on the other hand still propound a policy which the rest of Europe dismissed over 20 years ago. What essential point are our European neighbours missing that causes them to ignore the ‘expert advice’ of WHO Dental Committees?

Is it not much more likely that it is the Irish Health Department which is out of touch?

6. DEPARTMENT: "Today there are over 40 countries world-wide with national water fluoridation programmes serving over 170 million people."

VOICE: People dosed with fluorosilicic acid live almost entirely in North American and Australian cities and Ireland -- approx 2% of the world’s population. In the US these are not ‘national programmes’ -- they are municipal ones with very patchy take-up usually driven by the fluoride-industry with local dental support and minimal local debate. Over 60 US cities have discontinued fluoridation since 1990, many after more than 30 years. It is significant that US producers of fluorosilicic acid are still the most ardent supporters of a policy which saves their industry almost $600M a year(6) through the avoidance of toxic waste disposal charges.

7. DEPARTMENT: "Fluoridation of the major public water supplies commenced in Ireland in 1960."

VOICE: The US Public Health Service spent at least $100,000 to promote water fluoridation in Ireland in the 1950s and 1960s and it was US support for this toxic waste policy which persuaded Irish dentists in the 1950s to push fluoridation of water in Ireland. ALCOA, a large US producer of fluoride waste was fined $750,000 in February 1999 by the US Dept of Commerce for illegal shipments of fluorides on 50 separate occasions to Jamaica and Surinam by making false statements on export control documents (www.bxa.doc.gov/PRESS/99/ALCOA).

Fluoridation in Ireland did not commence until 1964 because of legal challenges and objections by both Dub lin and Cork Corporations ; it was by threatening both these bodies with dissolution that

Mr Haughey’s predecessor at Health finally forced this measure on to the sceptical councils.

8. DEPARTMENT: " there is an additional 40 million people served by water which is naturally fluoridated at equivalent levels."

VOICE: Countries with naturally occurring fluoride such as China and India pursue costly national programmes designed to take the fluoride OUT of their water as they are all too aware of the health damage it causes! As the Director of Fluorosis Research in India, Dr A.K Susheela said to Westminster Parliament members "it is absurd that fluoridation of water is practised in the UK, USA .. and other parts of the world.(7) The evidence against fluoride whether natural or industrial is to be

seen world-wide -- it is our Irish Health department which ignores it.

9. DEPARTMENT: "….fluoride particularly in drinking water, is responsible for the enormous reduction in tooth decay in recent years."

VOICE: It has been repeatedly shown that tooth decay has fallen in non-fluoridated areas just as much as in fluoridated areas, indicating that flouride is not the cause of better teeth. The former Principal Dental Officer in Auckland, NZ, Dr John Colquhoun produced a paper (8)"Fluoridation: Why I Changed My Mind" using extremely detailed and unchallenged New Zealand and US statistics to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of fluoridating water for reducing tooth decay.

10. DEPARTMENT: "The teeth of people with excess amounts of fluoride ie. above 1.5ppm showed effects of the excess in the form of mottling of the tooth enamel".

VOICE: The Department totally fails to state that mottling of the tooth enamel is a disease called fluorosis. Dr Colquhoun’s study also showed a sharp increase in dental fluorosis in those areas with fluoridated water. In Ireland Prof O’Mullane, as already quoted, has stated that almost half of children in fluoridated areas suffer from dental fluorosis -- a clear indication of serious fluoride overload in children’s bodies. The fact that Dr Colquhoun was by his own admission an ardent supporter of water fluoridation before he looked critically and, above all honestly at the figures in New Zealand, the US & UK lends a special weight to his evidence.

11. DEPARTMENT "The amount of fluoride added to drinking water is controlled by law to be in the range 0.8 to 1.0ppm fluoride."

VOICE: However often Irish dental experts assert that 1 part per million Fluoride (ppm F) is the ‘optimal’ amount to prevent dental caries these same experts fail to explain why the 1988 Irish Drinking Water Regulations stipulate a Maximum Allowable Concentration (MAC) for lead of 0.05 ppm . The MAC for fluoride, which is more toxic than lead, is 1 ppm or 20 times that of lead.

This is just another glaring example of the Health Department’s inconsistency : come January 2000 when lead in petrol is outlawed the Department will continue to add a toxic waste substance -- fluoride -- to our DRINKING water at 20 times higher than the permissible concentration of lead.

It is also entirely specious to state that the Irish MAC for fluoride of 1.0ppm versus the EU Drinking Water MAC of 1.5ppm reflects a greater safety margin since virtually no continental European water is fluoridated while three quarters of Irish water is. Moreover the EU Water Regulations refer to naturally occurring Fluoride (CaF) not the toxic waste hydrofluorosilicic acid (H2SiF6) added to Irish water.

12. DEPARTMENT: " By controlling the quality and amounts of fluoride in the public water supply ... the safety of everybody in the community is assured."

VOICE: The Health Department now chooses to ignore the World Health Organisation by omitting the Committee’s important injunction to check total ingestion of fluoride from all sources before adding more (to the water supplies). It is self evident that 40 years of spreading thousands of tonnes of this toxic waste into the environment have subjected the Irish people to many more sources of (toxic waste) fluoride than in 1960 including :-

--foods grown or prepared with fluoridated water,

--pesticide & fertiliser residues on fruit & vegetables -- (Californian wines have been shown to carry high amounts of fluoride due to fluoride-based pesticides)

--beer made from fluoridated water in all of Ireland’s major breweries except Dundalk

--fruit juices

--many anti-depressant drugs including Prozac.

--industrial emissions

--unleaded petrol

--various synthetic compounds such as teflon

The addition of flouride at up to 1,500 ppm has forced US toothpaste producers to carry POISON WARNINGS and many thousands of cases of children swallowing too much toothpaste have been reported to poison control centers across the US. The Health Department in Ireland has not carried out a single study to assess what total fluoride ingestion levels in the population are. No one in Ireland knows their total daily intake of fluoride therefore the claim about safety is without substance.

13. DEPARTMENT: "Water is a dietary item which is needed by everybody ..everybody who receives fluoride in water benefits from it."

VOICE: Of all the misleading statements this is surely the most outrageous. Fluoride is not a nutrient of any kind. Surely the Department of Health do not think that people will believe that a toxic waste, contaminated by other heavy metals such as arsenic and lead is an essential part of our diet especially as everyone has a different tolerance to any toxic substance.

Most at risk are infants under 6 months ‘who should not be given formula made up with water over 0.3ppm fluoride’ ; this is the recommendation of the American Academy of Paediatric Dentistry (9) given in 1994. Irish drinking water is 1ppm and no such warning is given to parents by the Department of Health or Health Boards.

As recently as December,1999 the Head of Toronto’s Preventive Dentistry warned " Children under three should never use fluoridated toothpaste or drink fluoridated water. And baby formula must never be made up using Toronto tap water (fluoridated). Never." (10)

14. DEPARTMENT: "Excessive fluoride consumption by children during the time their permanent teeth are forming is the only cause of mottling and can easily be prevented."

VOICE: The same American Academy of Paediatric Dentists advised that no fluoride supplements, including fluoride, be given to children of any age where water is fluoridated at 1ppm -- as it is in Ireland. Toothpaste containing fluoride must carry a poison warning in the US. It is a scandal that the Department of Health does not make poison warnings on toothpaste mandatory in Ireland, the most over-fluoridated country in Europe if not the world.

15. DEPARTMENT: " Since 1950 ... the safety and effectiveness of water fluoridation have been re-evaluated frequently."

VOICE: This is blatantly untrue. No health study on the whole body health of Irish people subjected to fluoridated drinking water has ever been done. Research from outside Ireland fares no better. International studies by a wide variety of experts in health from osteopathy, endocrinology, neuroscience, gynaecology and crucially, toxicology --- including numerous Nobel Prize winners’ work over the last 40 years -- all this is dismissed in a 45 page report of 1986 by HC Hodge (11) quoted by the Department. It was the same Hodge who is celebrated for his confusion of pounds with kilos in calculating the daily amount of fluoride necessary to cause skeletal fluorosis. It took him 26 years to acknowledge his error by admitting that a mere 5 milligrammes(mg) of fluoride per day for 20 years is the threshold for a 7 stone individual to develop skeletal fluorosis.

To give some idea of the risks for Irish people today, the daily intake of people in fluoridated water areas is estimated at 6 -10 mg/day. Clearly if the intake is 10mg/person then in 10 years there is a risk of skeletal fluorosis. Since teeth are the only visible part of the skeletal system and approx. 50% of children in fluoridated areas have dental fluorosis -- according to Prof O’Mullane above -- then there is clear evidence of fluoride damage to human bone in Ireland.

Here is yet another example of the shameless rejection by the Health Minister of all serious health research on this discredited health measure.

Since the Health Minister is blind to the international evidence of the serious health damage from adding fluoride to water supplies then he has an undeniable duty to implement urgently Section 6 of the Health Act 1960; this requires him to carry out independent health studies into the effects of this measure; purely dental studies, as shown over almost 40 years are not adequate and are therefore unacceptable.

Pending the outcome of these studies

1)the Health Minister should make available to those who demand it immediate free testing of their total fluoride intake by an independent laboratory.

2)He should provide full information on fluoride toxicity to the public & the medical profession and above all infant & child nutrition professionals.

3)He should make it mandatory for all toothpastes to carry poison warnings with special warnings for children.

References :

1. Fluorosilicic acid is supplied to the Eastern Health Board by Albatros Fertilizers of New Ross who import this waste product. The EHB purchase the fluorosilicic acid used by all 8 Irish Health Boards.

2. Masters R.D., ‘Correlation between Silicofluorides in Water & Lead Levels’. International Journal of Environmental Studies Aug, 1999.

3. Emsley J. ‘An Unexpectedly High Hydrogen Bond’ Journal of American Chemical Society 103,24-28, 1981

4. Sutton P., "The Greatest Fraud: Fluoridation" A Factual Book. Lorne. Aus. 1996

5. D.M.O’Mullane in US Journal of Dental Research Feb 1990, pp 756-763.

6. Connett P., ‘Fluoride: A Statement of Concern’. St Lawrence University,NY Nov 1999

7. Susheela AK., ‘Scientific Evidence on Adverse Effects of Fluoride on Human Tissues’. Paper presented to MPs, Westminster . Oct 1998

8. Colquhoun J., ‘Why I changed my Mind about Fluoridation’. Perspectives in Biology & Medicine 41, 1, Autumn 1997. Chicago University.

9. American Academy of Paediatric Dentistry Recommendation, 1994.

10. Barry Forbes ‘Prominent Researcher Apologises for Pushing Fluoride’ The Tribune,Mesa, Arizona, Dec,1999.

11. H.C.Hodge ‘The Safety of Fluoride Tablets or Drops’ "Continuing Evaluation of the use of Fluoride" AAAS Symposium ,Boulder, CO. 1979