In the new issue of Hot Press, Adrienne Murphy reveals evidence that a report carried out by the Irish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) into possible links between pollution and severe animal and human health problems in Askeaton, Co. Limerick was seriously flawed.

The area is downwind from three large industrial sites including the largest aluminum plant in Europe, Aughinish Alumina Ltd.

Reports of serious animal and human health problems across an area of 27 farms in Askeaton, Co. Limerick made national news in the mid-1990s. In response to growing controversy, the Irish government asked the EPA to conduct an environmental investigation, however, there are complete divergences between the conclusions in the EPA report and the findings made by different experts hired by the EPA.

Teagasc, a division of the Dept. of Agriculture, was assigned by the EPA to help with the investigation and found that the farms showed clear signs of fluoride contamination. However, these conclusions were apparently altered in the final EPA report.

Declan Waugh, the Irish scientist who has been researching the dangers of fluoride, tells Hot Press that Aughinish waste lagoons are some of the most fluoride-contaminated sites in the world.

“The EPA report said there was no source of fluoride anywhere in the area” Waugh said, “this is simply untrue.”

According to Waugh, the authors of the report ‘covered up the industrial poisoning of a community’ and ‘the consequences are so shocking for the local population that, at the very least, it calls for an immediate public inquiry’.

In the new issue, out now (The Strypes cover), Adrienne Murphy also speaks to the chief whip of the Labour Party, Emmet Stagg, who directly calls on Labour Party Junior Minister Alex White to look beyond his official advisors for information on the fluoride issue and that he believes “there’s overwhelming evidence that fluoridation causes damage to the human body”.

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