On the same day that Health Minister Micheal Martin makes it illegal to smoke in the work-place, he himself is directly responsible for polluting 2 billion gallons of drinking water daily in Ireland’s homes. ” The untested fluoridation chemical that he adds to our drinking water is a pollutant according to the EU’s scientists (1), furthermore it is banned in almost every other EU Member State”, said VOICE spokesman Robert Pocock.

Water fluoridation also totally destroys any claim that he leads Europe in reducing environmental threats to health. Quite the reverse is true because Article 4.2 of the EU Drinking Water Directive prohibits any increase in the pollution of water used for drinking water. “Our Health Minister is now ‘The Nation’s Top Polluter’ because this untested chemical pollutes the water in almost every household tap in Ireland”, added the spokesman.

“Since he became Health Minister his department has covered up the facts about fluoridation, culminating in the fiasco of his Fluoridation Forum” declared Pocock. The Forum was meant to allay growing public concern about fluoridation but eighteen months after it reported, not a word has been heard about the expert body that he promised to set up in order to implement its thirty-three recommendations.

Using an act dating back to 1963, Health Minister Micheal Martin still forces all 42 Sanitary Authorities to add an untested, industrial form of fluoride (hexafluorosilic acid) at one part per million to their drinking water whether they like it or not. The Eastern Regional Health Authority has admitted that it uses 2,000 gallons a day (2). This equates to 2,000,000,000(2 Billion) gallons of Irish drinking water being polluted every day by this untested fluoridation chemical (3).

Eleven local authorities from Kerry to Donegal have voted against this chemical in their drinking water but have been blocked by the Health Minister and his Forum. An even clearer sign of public opposition is the massive 91% of respondents who told his Fluoridation Forum that they do not want this pollution in their drinking water (4). Why then does he ignore them while enacting a ban on toxic tobacco smoke in workplace air, for which he also claims broad consumer support? Like passive smoke in the workplace, this noxious pollutant in drinking water can not be avoided and worse still, almost half of it accumulates in the body, mainly in bone.

“More and more people are asking how a minister can push through a progressive policy like ‘Smoke-free Works’, while at the same time forcing an untested pollution chemical into our kitchen tap over the wishes of local authorities and the public. Its time he put public interest and EU rights (5) above departmental self-interest and ended this practice that is totally discredited in the rest of Europe” declared the VOICE spokesman.

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(1) EU Scientific Committee on Toxicity, Ecotoxicity & the Environment, 12th June 2003 on
http://europa.eu.int/comm/consumers/cons_safe/news/drinkingwater_opinion2003.pdf
(2) www.fluoridefree.com/
(3). http://www.npwa.freeserve.co.uk/watershed-8-1-2002-p2.doc.
(4) www.fluoridationforum.ie / Appendix 4 page 157
(5) Medication without free and informed individual consent infringes Article 3.2 of Charter of Fundamental Human Rights of the European Union, 2000.

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