Madam, - Lorna Siggins's riveting Irishwoman's Diary on Rachel Carson (December 31st) should sound many warning bells with regard to water quality and the need to protect our drinking water from pollution in all its forms.
I wonder what Rachel Carson would think of the fact that 99 per cent of the toxic corrosive acid H2SiF6 used to fluoridate Irish drinking water ends up in the ecosystem.
How has water quality and aquatic life in Ireland been affected by 44 years of this policy? Ninety-seven per cent of the world's water is in the oceans, and only 3 per cent is held in surface water and ice-caps. This 3 per cent is what we live on and it must be protected and kept free from contamination.
Rachel Carson spoke out against excessive use of weedkillers and their long term effects on the lower food chain for animals and birds in her book Silent Spring. Is there "silent pollution" happening all over the country by the constant flooding of our environment with fluoridation agents?
Why overload the eco-system by fluoridation when there is no need to do so? We can have good teeth without swallowing a poison. Many other countries have stopped water fluoridation for health, legal and environmental reasons.
- Yours, etc,
MARY HILARY, Booterstown Avenue, Blackrock, Co Dublin.