Following the publication of 27 Questions to the Minister in charge of fluoridation policy Alex White, in the last issue, Hot Press delivered the questions in person last week...
Hot Press journalist Adrienne Murphy, along with the self-styled ‘Girl Against Fluoride’, Aisling FitzGibbon, personally delivered a set of 27 questions in the form of an Open Letter to Junior Minister for Health, Alex White – the Minister in charge of Ireland’s fluoridation policy – at the Department of Health, on Wednesday, March 20.
The Minister accepted a copy of the Open Letter, which was published in full in Hot Press a fortnight ago. The Minister agreed to respond to the series of questions put to him in the magazine, regarding the mandatory fluoridation of Ireland’s water supply – and went on to commit to sitting down to address the issues raised.
“He was very pleasant,” Murphy says of her encounter with the Minister. “The meeting was fortuitous but he responded graciously, in what must have been a difficult situation for him – so I am optimistic that he will really begin to look closely at what is recognised internationally as a highly controversial policy.”
While the supporters of the policy, which has been in place in Ireland since the early 1960s, may not like the terminology, the vast bulk of the population of the Republic is currently being mass medicated through fluoridation of the water supply, with every citizen being forced to consume a substance on the assumption that it is “good for our teeth.”
In our report, which called for an independent review of the long-standing policy, Adrienne Murphy suggested that there is a failure on the part of the authorities to carry out the research necessary to test the effects of the country’s fluoridation policy, as envisaged by Section 6 of the 1960 Fluoridation Act.
“The Minister, Alex White, was appointed to the role only recently,” Adrienne Murphy adds, “so he has no culpability whatsoever in relation to what has happened in the past. That should hopefully mean that he is open to completely re-examining the Irish health authority’s policy of compulsory fluoridation.”
Ireland is the only EU country which engages in mandatory national water fluoridation. An estimated 98% of Europe does not fluoridate the water supply on health as well as on ethical grounds. In no other regard is freedom of choice in medical issues taken away from Irish citizens in a one-size fits all basis.
“The Government says fluoride is good for our teeth – or more specifically, apparently, for those of the less well-off. But do our policy makers have conclusive evidence that fluoridation isn’t harming us in other ways?” Adrienne Murphy asks. “The Minister read out a speech in the Seanad earlier this year, which offered a variety of reassurances. But as the letters which have been pouring into Hot Press confirm, there is a lot of counter-evidence out there. So have the authorities here carried out any research and if not, why not?
“Besides, fluoride can be topically applied in toothpaste. One might think it better to teach school children about the importance of brushing their teeth, rather than risking everyone’s health by putting fluoride in the water. Instead, Ireland is systemically medicating everyone – in my view without knowing what the side effects might be. The fluoride is getting into every part of our bodies – not just our teeth!”
“This is a major public health issue, which we have highlighted in a series of articles,” Hot Press editor Niall Stokes says. “It is important that the 27 Questions, which have been posed in Hot Press, should now be answered not in a defensive way but rather in a spirit of open-ness to all of the available information – and especially with an awareness of the ethical issues. In that regard, the fact that the Minister is fresh to the brief is undoubtedly a good thing.”
In a separate development, Hot Press has received a letter of complaint from the Irish Expert Body on Fluorides and Health, which they have asked us not to publish. The letter is highly critical of many of the claims made by the scientist Declan Waugh in the first and second articles in the series on fluoride, published six and four weeks ago respectively. Hot Press will be responding officially to the letter over the course of the coming week.
Declan Waugh has also been the subject of vilification on the Hot Press Facebook page, with pro-fluoridation contributors suggesting that he has distorted and misrepresented the scientific research in the arguments reported in Hot Press. One of the critical commentaries is reproduced minus its more colourful elements on the letters page of the current issue and there are further extracts elsewhere in these pages.
“We are very happy to include the views of people who support the policy of fluoridation, as we did last issue,” Hot Press editor Niall Stokes resumes. “But we have also received a huge volume of supportive letters. Some of these are from people of considerable eminence in medicine and in science. We are not saying that we have all the answers. But clearly the series has tapped a raw nerve, so hopefully it will inspire a complete review of the policy. Because no matter how well intentioned it might have been in the first instance, the logic of it is very difficult to understand in 2013.
“One of the most important points to be made is that there is a very real ethical issue involved in forcing the entire population of a country to consume what is a form of medicine. I think it is time that we faced up to that as a country.”
Adrienne Murphy was joined outside the Department of Health by the woman who has dubbed herself “Fluoride Girl”.
“Whatever the counter arguments might be,” Aisling FitzGibbon says, “if there is any question whatsoever about fluoridation being safe, then the precautionary principle must come into play – and as an EU member Ireland are obliged to follow this principle.”
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