Re: On the Couch, Health Supplement, September 26th
The admiration for those who in the 1960s introduced water fluoridation into Ireland, expressed by the Irish Dental Association's president, Gerry Cleary, is not shared by the 90 per cent of people who told the Fluoridation Forum in 2000-2001 that they do not want fluoridation.
They wish to join the 98 per cent of the 550 million people in the enlarged EU who are fluoridation-free.
Instead of repeating the Irish mantra about fluoridation and tooth decay, the IDA president should explain how every other European country has achieved similar and often greater reductions in tooth decay in the past 40 years without fluoridating their drinking water.
There is another and even more serious omission: in more than 40 years no general health studies - as required under the legislation - into the unforeseen effects have been done here despite the growing evidence of harm from uncontrolled and unmonitored fluoride ingestion.
Four teenagers in 10 now have fluoride poisoning in the form of dental fluorosis and international research has raised serious concerns about fluoridation's link to bone cancer in young boys.
It is also alarming to learn that the president of Ireland's largest body of dental practitioners is apparently unaware that since 1999 it is internationally acknowledged that the main action of fluoride is topical, ie it should not be swallowed.
Fortunately, more than 120 members of Irish Dentists Opposing Fluoridation - see www.idof.net - are aware of these facts. These and other troubling questions about the policy have led them to ask the Minister For Health, Mary Harney, to repeal the outdated Fluoridation Act and thus bring Irish dental policy into line with the rest of Europe.
Robert Pocock, VOICE of Irish Concern for the Environment
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