Here at the Daily Health we’ve been campaigning against the fluoridation of drinking water for years. Back in 2005, we told you about a number of studies linking fluoride to as many as 10,000 cancer deaths in the US every year, with a high incidence of bone cancer among men exposed to fluoride.
More recently in 2009, we highlighted the fact that an excessive intake of fluoride can build-up in the brain and permanently reduce the IQ of children. These shocking findings are supported by a long list of studies that have been conducted world wide, which all show that fluoride holds very little (if any) health benefits.
The fluoride used in toothpaste, mouth rinses and dental gels usually is sodium fluoride – a waste product from the aluminium industry.
The fluoride added to our water supply is hydrofluorosilic acid or sometimes silicofluoride – waste products of the fertiliser and glass industries.
Professor Kaj Roholm, former Chief of the Toxicology Committee for the National Research Council, classified hydrofluorosilic acid and hexafluorosilic acid as “extremely toxic.”
No wonder since 1990, 54 US and Canadian cities have rejected hydrofluorosilic acid. Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Finland, Luxembourg, Norway, Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands and Italy have all banned the addition of hydrofluorosilic acid to drinking water and so have Japan and India.
The UK (except Wales, Scotland and the Isle of Man) and Southern Ireland are the only European Union (EU) member states that deliberately fluoridate their citizens… and at what cost?
Enter the Scientific Committee on Health and Environmental Risks
Currently SCHER’s preliminary opinion, as presented to the EC, states that water fluoridation is ‘a crude and rather ineffective form of systemic fluoride treatment to prevent dental caries without a detectable threshold for dental and bone damage’.
Furthermore, in a public hearing held in Brussels, international researchers, health and environmental campaigners presented detailed evidence of fluoride’s negative effects on bone and tooth enamel, the brain, kidney, thyroid function and the endocrine system (regulating the body’s hormones), which are all supported by extensive scientific research.
A key concern which came to light at the Brussels hearing is the overexposure of populations to fluoride. In Ireland, dental fluorosis in children has reached epidemic proportions. The 2002 North South Survey of Children’s Oral Health in Ireland revealed a seven-fold increase in dental fluorosis in Irish 15-year-olds from 1984 to 2002. Dental fluorosis, which manifests as mottling or pitting of tooth enamel, is a sign of bodily overload of fluoride.
Hornets nest of widely differing opinions and legislation
Despite the mounting evidence against water fluoridation and the fact that most EU member states having banned fluoride in drinking water, there still is no level playing field in the way that this potentially harmful substance is being considered by European authorities.
In the case of fluoride, there are fundamental contradictions between the advice from SCHER and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) – another EU scientific committee, monitoring the safety of supplements and cosmetics including toothpaste.
The EFSA recently approved monofluorophosphate as a permitted food supplement under the Food Supplements Directive (somewhat ironic considering that they are trying to ban just about every natural substance in existence!). Yet fluoride toothpastes must carry labels warning children under six-years not to swallow sodium monofluorophosphate… So what is it to be EFSA?
The UK Councils Against Fluoridation (UKCAF) has written directly to the European Commissioner ultimately responsible for the public hearing, in Brussels, John Dalli, demanding immediate enforcement of the relevant medicines directives… as they believe fluoridation is a medical issue and not a scientific one.
It is extremely frustrating that those in power refuse to acknowledge the mounting evidence against fluoridation and aren’t acting on it to enforce an all-out ban.
One can only hope, that after the Brussels Hearing and after reviewing all the evidence, the EC will step up to the mark and force the Irish and UK Governments to ban its nonsensical mass fluoridation of the public water supply.