Sir, - In a year in which Irish" consumers are still reeling from the revelations concerning BSE and CJD, antibiotics in pork, pesticide residues in fruit and vegetables and the arrival into Ireland of genetically engineered soya products, may I add insult to injury by adding the issue of fluoride to the list?
Thirty three years ago, the Government of the day decided in its wisdom to add fluoride to our drinking water. Today, 66 per cent of Irish water is fluoridated. The primary purpose - indeed, as far as I know, the only purpose - of adding fluoride to our water is to assist in preventing dental caries.
The problem with this justification, however, is that dental caries is not a fluoride deficiency disease, but primarily the result of inappropriate diet and inadequate oral hygiene. It is, therefore, largely a preventable condition.
Fluoride is categorised as a dangerous substance under the EU Dangerous Substances Directive. It is a cumulative, toxic and corrosive poison. Now, one would think that it is the duty of government to supply drinking water which is as pure and uncontaminated as is humanly possible, given the problems posed by industrialisation, intensive farming practices, urbanisation etc. It is certainly not the duty of government and local authorities to use water as a medium for conveying medicines.
Yet this is precisely what has been happening for over thirty years. In Ireland the consumer land in this matter, we are all consumers cannot opt out of drinking fluoridated water, as it is added to all local authority drinking water supplies before reaching our taps. Such enforced medication violates the basic right of access to pure, uncontaminated drinking water. It further violates a basic right to choose what medicines we take, if indeed we choose to take any. According to this and past governments, we simply must take our medicine!
The scandal of fluoride is that the health risks associated with its ingestion have been known, certainly in some quarters, for many years. Recently unearthed research papers from a US Atomic Weapons Base stated, in 1944 (!) that flouride can accumulate in the brain and can lead to a lower IQ. This mirrors more recent research emanating from China, which points to a possible link between fluoride ingestion and brain defects in children.
There will be the predictable denials by the Ministers for Health and the Environment, the assurances that fluoride in strictly monitored circumstances is safe, and of course the dentists of Ireland will be queueing up to offer statistics on the decline in dental caries. But, sooner or later - and the sooner the better for all of us - fluoride will disappear from all: water supplies. - Yours, etc,
Environment spokesperson, Green Party Comhaontas Glas, 5a Upper Fownes Street,
Dublin 2.