More news from Health & Children2 years after set-up of Forum on Fluoridation Govt has failed to implement any of its recommendations

“As a follow up public Health measure to the Smoking ban in the workplace, the Minister for Health Micheal Martin, must now listen to the anti-fluoridation groups who are calling for the implementation of the 33 recommendations of the Government’s Fluoridation Forum Report”, said Fine Gael Spokesperson on Health and Children, Olivia Mitchell TD today (Monday).

“The quality of our drinking water should be a major public Health priority because it affects each and every one of us.

“Following concerns about Ireland mass medicating its population through its public water system, a Government established Forum on
Fluoridation was established which made several recommendations covering a broad rage of topics such as research, public awareness and policy and technical aspects of fluoridation. However, almost 2 years later, there has been virtually no movement on any of the forum’s recommendations.

“Fluoride is implicated with skeletal fluorosis, Alzheimer’s disease, Osteoporosis, underactive 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.

“The whole notion of a mandatory mass medication scheme is repellent and becomes frightening when one considers the dosage ingested by an individual is impossible to measure.

“It is known that the rapid increase in incidence of dental fluorosis is caused by the excessive intake of fluoride. Why would we imagine that the damage is limited to the very visible impact on our teeth?

“It is both foolhardy and pointless to ignore the recommendations of the Forum on Fluoridation and I would plead with Minister Martin to at least reduce the amount of fluoride added to our water in line with one of its major recommendations.”

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