Re: Heart Beat, HealthSupplement, October 17th While reading Maurice Neligan's Heart Beat column of October 17th, my own heart skipped several beats, for a number of reasons.
The first was caused by a matter of fact, the rest were caused by matters of opinion.
Maurice Neligan based his column on a current campaign to cut down on dioxin levels in the atmosphere through an appeal to curtail the traditional Halloween bonfire.
He went on to credit this campaign to the Health and Safety Authority. Not so.
There are many things with which we can be credited but this is not one.
Perhaps Mr Neligan might like to credit the Environmental Protection Agency, the real source for this campaign.
But based on this misconception, Mr Neligan expresses the view that "once more we are being saved from ourselves by some benign institution like the Health and Safety Authority".
While we might smile benignly at his description of us as benign, we can be less than happy about the opinions that follow.
He asks: "are such simple pleasures to be cast away at the behest of faceless ones with their learned exposition of pseudo-science" and uses the legislative fallout from the Seveso industrial accident to illustrate his point.
The Health and Safety Authority does indeed have responsibilities in this area.
While not wishing to curtail Mr Neligan's pleasures in any way, it is worth pointing out that those strictures applied across Europe in the aftermath of the Seveso accident were done so as prudent and precautionary measures based not on pseudo-science but on real fears about the long and short-term effects of exposures to emissions.
Indeed, so serious was the Seveso incident viewed across Europe that it was the subject of a specific EU Directive aimed at making sure that it did not happen again.
The same principle applies across the board to a range of issues and activities from noise pollution, to exposure to chemicals, even to the smoking ban in our own country.
Mr Neligan's colleagues in the medical profession know only too well the results of exposure to many of the things he would brand as harmless.
Indeed, I would suggest that were one to scan the newspaper columns of the last century one would find a latter-day Maurice Neligan poking gentle fun at those who would suggest a direct link between lifestyle and environment and the range of illness in which Mr Neligan himself specialised.
There is a balance to be struck between what Maurice Neligan describes as simple pleasures and their consequences for health and safety.
A lifetime smoking may well be a simple pleasure, less pleasurable than the possible consequences for the smoker and those who come into contact with them.
Equally, while the knock-on effects of various processes, noises, toxins, dioxins, etc might be difficult to gauge, it is both wise and prudent to take account of any possible consequences.
Indeed, it is worth mentioning that workplace accidents and incidents cost our economy around €3.4 billion each year.
Many of these incidents are caused in one way or another by factors on which Maurice Neligan takes the more relaxed view.
One hopes that Maurice Neligan continues to enjoy his simple pleasures and can smile benignly on those of us who must worry about the future.
Tom Beegan, chief executive, The Health and Safety Authority
Re: Readers Response, HealthSupplement, October 17th, on fluoridation of the public water supply
As the source of the recommendation (Our Lady's Children's Hospital for Sick Children Crumlin) quoted in this article (and not the FOI as quoted), it is essential to clarify the following:
The basis of our recommendation of specific bottled water to make infant formula is to control the electrolyte content and has nothing to do with fluoride content.
Ruth Charles, senior dietitian, Department Nutrition & Dietetics, Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children, Crumlin
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