Letter sent to Evening Post, Stroud News and Bath Chronicle from one of our supporters - meanwhile our next monthly meeting is 11th Jan at 12.30 - call us for details:
Sir, - In the correspondence columns of the Daily Telegraph recently, a reader quite rightly says, "Pedalling drugs is tantamount to committing slow murder and should be punished as such"
Would he apply that same yardstick to the deliberate contamination of our water supplies, by an autocratic Health Secretary, with a life-threatening industrial waste chemical, once claimed, but now disproved, as a dental health benefit for children?
The catalogue of serious health conditions associated with tap water fluoridation includes IBS, hyperactivity, dementia, depressed IQ, depressed immunity and thyroid function, arthritis, bone fractures and cancers (osteosarcomas), genetic damage including DNA distortion, environmental Lead absorption and kidney failure.
Evidential negative studies run to thousands, internationally confirmed, validated and peer-reviewed; but our Government is now a lone voice in Europe proclaiming "No evidence of harm."
So what penalty do the blinkered ministers, MPs and NHS officials deserve for leading us all into a painfully reduced life expectancy by continuing to promote fluoride as a health benefit?
Bernard J Seward
Sunday, 3 January 2010
Sunday, 6 December 2009
What about water poisoning?
Another of Bernard's letters - this time to the Telegraph:
Andrew Gimson's article exalts David Cameron as the people's champion of the 1974 Health & Safety at Work Act. Not only the workplace but the environment at large has benefited from the best interpretations of this Act.
"Few politicians, says Gimson, "are prepared to advocate an increase in food poisoning". . . Hold it right there Mr Gimson! What about water poisoning?
152 of them voted in support of the fluoride-enabling amendment to the Water Bill 2003. Did they all know that the additive fluoride (as distinct from the natural kind), is an untested, unrefined and uncertificated industrial waste product of fertiliser manufacture? Containing as it does significant traces of heavy metals, corrosives and radionuclides, it cannot in all honesty be linked to anything to do with public health.
The HSE, when challenged to uphold and defend the consumers best interests, refers the enquirer to the Drinking Water Inspectorate which is equally evasive with "We supply a product that conforms to the regulations..."
At a stroke then, it would appear that something very nasty which might have found its way by accident into our water, attracting a massive penalty upon the offender, has become legalised for mass distribution nationwide through our key commodity; the fresh, clean, potable drinking water we expect to draw through our taps.
If Mr Cameron can focus his attention on this single outrageous anomaly in public health policy, he will scoop many Labour votes while helping to improve, significantly, our general health. If he's still in doubt, he should ask the Green Party.
Bernard J Seward,
The Labour Party
National Pure Water Association
Bristolians Against Fluoridation
Safe Water Campaign
Andrew Gimson's article exalts David Cameron as the people's champion of the 1974 Health & Safety at Work Act. Not only the workplace but the environment at large has benefited from the best interpretations of this Act.
"Few politicians, says Gimson, "are prepared to advocate an increase in food poisoning". . . Hold it right there Mr Gimson! What about water poisoning?
152 of them voted in support of the fluoride-enabling amendment to the Water Bill 2003. Did they all know that the additive fluoride (as distinct from the natural kind), is an untested, unrefined and uncertificated industrial waste product of fertiliser manufacture? Containing as it does significant traces of heavy metals, corrosives and radionuclides, it cannot in all honesty be linked to anything to do with public health.
The HSE, when challenged to uphold and defend the consumers best interests, refers the enquirer to the Drinking Water Inspectorate which is equally evasive with "We supply a product that conforms to the regulations..."
At a stroke then, it would appear that something very nasty which might have found its way by accident into our water, attracting a massive penalty upon the offender, has become legalised for mass distribution nationwide through our key commodity; the fresh, clean, potable drinking water we expect to draw through our taps.
If Mr Cameron can focus his attention on this single outrageous anomaly in public health policy, he will scoop many Labour votes while helping to improve, significantly, our general health. If he's still in doubt, he should ask the Green Party.
Bernard J Seward,
The Labour Party
National Pure Water Association
Bristolians Against Fluoridation
Safe Water Campaign
Sunday, 1 November 2009
Mercury, fluoride and more
Letter sent to Western Daily by Safe Water member expressing his own views:
I see the Director of Bristol's Public Health, Dr Hugh Annett, has been dismissive of alarms raised by those readers concerned about the neurotoxic element Mercury being part of the mix of the swine flu vaccine. "Just a preservative..." he says, as though it is of small consequence. One of my technology college technicians was poisoned to death by an exploding thermometer vaporising its contents. Mercury is not something to be trifled with and readers are justified in their concern.
By the same token, its presence in the industrial waste compound misleadingly called 'fluoride' the potential threat to our general health, also under the hippocritical promotion of Dr Annett, should be condemned.
Besides mercury, its residues include, cadmium, chromium, silicon and two radioactive elements, one of which decays to lead. It really should have no place in anything even remotely connected with public health, at whatever concentration, but the Medicines and Health Care Products Regulatory Agency MHRA appears to be prepared, inexplicably, to give it complete clearance.
The graph of a 25 year Swedish survey conducted under the auspices of the World Health Organisation, plotting the general decline in tooth decay throughout European countries, shows upward/reverse trends only in those countries where fluoridation has been promoted and adopted, suggesting that fluoride actually causes dental decay instead of preventing it as is claimed.
Arthritis is one of the serious conditions implicated. The cause and effect of fluoride on that condition was established in 1993 by Dr Robert Carton, a risk assessment manager for the US Environmental Protection Agency. Carton had conducted research based on the medical records of several hundred thousand women, post-65 years of age, some of whom had been exposed to fluoridated water supplies. Those who had been so exposed suffered from arthritis - all of them; but those living in unfluoridated communities and states, were relatively free of the disease.
Our Government's attitude to that research; and more like it from other countries including Australia, New Zealand, China, India and Japan, has been to ignore it. The MHRA is obviously content to follow that policy along with the Health & Safety Executive, the Drinking Water Inspectorate, the British Dental Association, the BMA and successive health ministers of both main political parties,
The history of fluoridation has been characterised internationally by droves of distinguished 'experts' and learned bodies side-stepping their public responsibility to tell the truth. Today, nothing seems to have changed.
Bernard J Seward
I see the Director of Bristol's Public Health, Dr Hugh Annett, has been dismissive of alarms raised by those readers concerned about the neurotoxic element Mercury being part of the mix of the swine flu vaccine. "Just a preservative..." he says, as though it is of small consequence. One of my technology college technicians was poisoned to death by an exploding thermometer vaporising its contents. Mercury is not something to be trifled with and readers are justified in their concern.
By the same token, its presence in the industrial waste compound misleadingly called 'fluoride' the potential threat to our general health, also under the hippocritical promotion of Dr Annett, should be condemned.
Besides mercury, its residues include, cadmium, chromium, silicon and two radioactive elements, one of which decays to lead. It really should have no place in anything even remotely connected with public health, at whatever concentration, but the Medicines and Health Care Products Regulatory Agency MHRA appears to be prepared, inexplicably, to give it complete clearance.
The graph of a 25 year Swedish survey conducted under the auspices of the World Health Organisation, plotting the general decline in tooth decay throughout European countries, shows upward/reverse trends only in those countries where fluoridation has been promoted and adopted, suggesting that fluoride actually causes dental decay instead of preventing it as is claimed.
Arthritis is one of the serious conditions implicated. The cause and effect of fluoride on that condition was established in 1993 by Dr Robert Carton, a risk assessment manager for the US Environmental Protection Agency. Carton had conducted research based on the medical records of several hundred thousand women, post-65 years of age, some of whom had been exposed to fluoridated water supplies. Those who had been so exposed suffered from arthritis - all of them; but those living in unfluoridated communities and states, were relatively free of the disease.
Our Government's attitude to that research; and more like it from other countries including Australia, New Zealand, China, India and Japan, has been to ignore it. The MHRA is obviously content to follow that policy along with the Health & Safety Executive, the Drinking Water Inspectorate, the British Dental Association, the BMA and successive health ministers of both main political parties,
The history of fluoridation has been characterised internationally by droves of distinguished 'experts' and learned bodies side-stepping their public responsibility to tell the truth. Today, nothing seems to have changed.
Bernard J Seward
Saturday, 10 October 2009
Safe Water Campaign AGM
Here is Philip Booth's blog entry re the AGM:Today was the Safe Water Campaign of Gloucestershire's AGM and over 20 people came to hear Stephen Peckham from 'Hampshire Against Fluoridation' talk at The School of Art and Science, Lansdown.
Photos: Stephen talking then below some of the audience and Rob and Jehanne playing Brown Spotted TeethLike previous AGMs we had our introductory song from Rob and Jehanne Mehta - Brown Spotted Teeth - we also elected officers - I've now stepped down from Secretary after quite a number of years - I will stay involved but we now have a new committee established.
Anyway Stephen talked about what maybe imposed on us here in Glos and how they fought the campaign against water fluoridation in Hampshire. Amazingly despite massive opposition for fluoridation there, including from Hampshire County Council and other Councils, the Health Authority still unanimously voted for fluoridating their water supply.
The latest news is that Hampshire campaigners have won the right for Southampton City Council to discuss fluoridation again at Court Leet - see here - that Council was the only body that supported fluoridation and the Health Authority have repeatedly quoted them despite all others opposing.....we are hoping that councillors who voted for fluoridation there might reconsider now that they know the polls came out so against fluoridation. The results of that will be known within 2 months and will hopefully be useful for the judicial review.....Yes the other news is that the go-ahead has been given for a judicial review - see here - it should happen Jan or Feb next year. This is to look at the process - when MPs voted they clearly wanted public views to be taken into account yet the advice from theDepartment of Health ignored this and so the Health Authority there can ignore their own consultations showing the public don't want water fluoridated. We'll see - we are all hoping commonsense will prevail. It is utterly outrageous that the health authority can dismiss the views of the population and elected bodies in such a fashion.
Stephen's talk was wonderfully informative and knowledgeable - and without any sensation or nonsense that some campaigners occasionally get carried away with - he covered stuff like the York Review and their clear statements that it could not say whether fluoride was safe or effective - yet this is what health folk claim the York review said - amazingly it is the only review that the authors have had on occasions to issue statements saying the reviews findings were being misused.Anyway it is late now but we learnt much from Hampshire's experiences and hope to ensure that there is no way that the people of Gloucestershire get compulsorily medicated with fluoridated tap water in the future. At our next meeting we will be looking at the next steps we need to take - join us - we need the help to build an effective campaign - call on 01453 763943 for more info.
Tuesday, 6 October 2009
West Midlands Against Fluoridation launch website
After a few months in the formation, West Midlands Against Fluoridation finally went live this week. They know there are a few glitches and would welcome suggestions for improving the site.
The url is: http://www.wmaf.org.uk
The url is: http://www.wmaf.org.uk
Saturday, 3 October 2009
Closure of St Peter's Hospice
Letter, (slightly edited) appeared in Evening Post last week:
Dr Fox of the St John's Lane Health Centre speaks probably for hundreds, if not thousands, of Bristolians when he says the closure of St Peter's Hospice at Knowle will be a major loss to the South Bristol Community.
How far could that grossly overpriced consultancy job on a new name for the Museum of Bristol have financed the salvation of that institution?
Then add the £10 million or so, earmarked from NHS funding to promote fluoridation in our area - an unethical and arguably illegal interference with our right not to be compulsorily treated; and a plan which nobody needs, or wants, or is prepared to pay for.
And if anyone in politics and the health services wishes to argue about kiddies' tooth decay, how does preserving, on average, half a tooth per child per year - teeth soon to be lost anyway as children grow up - stack up against the reputation of human love, care and compassion offered to the terminally ill? In this respect, St Peter's represents the gold standard; an immeasurable asset to our sick and their loved ones. Yet another failed test of our convoluted priorities!
BERNARD J SEWARD
Dr Fox of the St John's Lane Health Centre speaks probably for hundreds, if not thousands, of Bristolians when he says the closure of St Peter's Hospice at Knowle will be a major loss to the South Bristol Community.
How far could that grossly overpriced consultancy job on a new name for the Museum of Bristol have financed the salvation of that institution?
Then add the £10 million or so, earmarked from NHS funding to promote fluoridation in our area - an unethical and arguably illegal interference with our right not to be compulsorily treated; and a plan which nobody needs, or wants, or is prepared to pay for.
And if anyone in politics and the health services wishes to argue about kiddies' tooth decay, how does preserving, on average, half a tooth per child per year - teeth soon to be lost anyway as children grow up - stack up against the reputation of human love, care and compassion offered to the terminally ill? In this respect, St Peter's represents the gold standard; an immeasurable asset to our sick and their loved ones. Yet another failed test of our convoluted priorities!
BERNARD J SEWARD
Missed opportunity on 'Any Questions'
Another letter to the Daily Telegraph:
One of the questions, on BBC Radio 4’s “Any Questions?” on Friday evening, concerned Living Wills and their legal effect with regard to the delicate issue of self-determined suicides.
The members of the panel included journalist Matthew Parris and the Health Secretary, Andy Burnham.
Parris who took first stab at answering the question stated quite emphatically, “You can’t treat somebody against their will.”
It would have been a golden opportunity for another of the panel members, Eric Pickles for example, to have jumped at Andy Burnham, reminding him that he, of all people, was doing just that in pressing ahead with water fluoridation – mass medication par excellence.
Treating countless numbers of ‘somebodys’ against their individual right not to be treated en masse; and doing it regardless of validated evidence of its downside effects; of majority public opinion and the outcome of any public consultations, has besmirched any notion of Burnham being seen as an ethical or honest health broker.
Being as he has no medical or other scientific qualifications,it begs the question as to why he was appointed to that cabinet position at all, unless it was specifically to steam-roller this act of public betrayal in the interests of what used to be called Labour Party Democracy.
Bernard J Seward
One of the questions, on BBC Radio 4’s “Any Questions?” on Friday evening, concerned Living Wills and their legal effect with regard to the delicate issue of self-determined suicides.
The members of the panel included journalist Matthew Parris and the Health Secretary, Andy Burnham.
Parris who took first stab at answering the question stated quite emphatically, “You can’t treat somebody against their will.”
It would have been a golden opportunity for another of the panel members, Eric Pickles for example, to have jumped at Andy Burnham, reminding him that he, of all people, was doing just that in pressing ahead with water fluoridation – mass medication par excellence.
Treating countless numbers of ‘somebodys’ against their individual right not to be treated en masse; and doing it regardless of validated evidence of its downside effects; of majority public opinion and the outcome of any public consultations, has besmirched any notion of Burnham being seen as an ethical or honest health broker.
Being as he has no medical or other scientific qualifications,it begs the question as to why he was appointed to that cabinet position at all, unless it was specifically to steam-roller this act of public betrayal in the interests of what used to be called Labour Party Democracy.
Bernard J Seward
Friday, 2 October 2009
Sunflowers growth?
Letter to the Daily Telegraph:
On my Bristol allotment I have grown sunflowers with 15 and 18 inch (381 and 457mm) heads which needed staking to support their weight.
Stephen Dorey of Gloucestershire asks whether his water supply might influence his impressive multiple headed plants.
Not yet, Mr Dorey; but if Health Secretary Andy Burnham persists with his manic obsession to get more of of our supplies fluoridated, you will definitely see a difference.
It was the Dutch Bulb Growers Association which successfully petitioned to have fluoridation stopped in Holland because of its serious effect on its prime exports; daffs, tulips gladioli and lilies.
Extrapolated across English gardens, the agricultural landscape, environment and eco-system, we should all see a difference;
for the worse.
Bernard J Seward
On my Bristol allotment I have grown sunflowers with 15 and 18 inch (381 and 457mm) heads which needed staking to support their weight.
Stephen Dorey of Gloucestershire asks whether his water supply might influence his impressive multiple headed plants.
Not yet, Mr Dorey; but if Health Secretary Andy Burnham persists with his manic obsession to get more of of our supplies fluoridated, you will definitely see a difference.
It was the Dutch Bulb Growers Association which successfully petitioned to have fluoridation stopped in Holland because of its serious effect on its prime exports; daffs, tulips gladioli and lilies.
Extrapolated across English gardens, the agricultural landscape, environment and eco-system, we should all see a difference;
for the worse.
Bernard J Seward
Monday, 28 September 2009
AGM talk on 10th October
"THE THREAT OF THE FLUORIDATION OF OUR TAP WATER IN THE SOUTH WEST"
Come and hear a talk by Stephen Peckham from 'Hampshire Against Fluoridation' about what maybe imposed on us in the South and West.
Details: 11.30am Saturday 10th October 2009 at The School of Art and Science, Lansdown, Stroud (opposite the library). The talk will be followed by the AGM of the Safe Water Campaign for Gloucestershire.
Philip Booth, Secretary of the Safe Water Campaign said: "Stephen Peckham is an active campaigner with the 'Hampshire Against Fluoridation' group and seen how despite massive opposition for fluoridation there, including from Hampshire County Council, the Health Authority still unanimously voted for fluoridating their water supply. Stephen is a health service researcher and has published widely on health services, public health, ethics and health policy. We hope to learn from Hampshire's experience to ensure that there is no way that the people of Gloucestershire get compulsorily medicated with fluoridated tap water."
Safe Water Campaign for Gloucestershire - Further information Tel. 01453 872915
Come and hear a talk by Stephen Peckham from 'Hampshire Against Fluoridation' about what maybe imposed on us in the South and West.
Details: 11.30am Saturday 10th October 2009 at The School of Art and Science, Lansdown, Stroud (opposite the library). The talk will be followed by the AGM of the Safe Water Campaign for Gloucestershire.
Philip Booth, Secretary of the Safe Water Campaign said: "Stephen Peckham is an active campaigner with the 'Hampshire Against Fluoridation' group and seen how despite massive opposition for fluoridation there, including from Hampshire County Council, the Health Authority still unanimously voted for fluoridating their water supply. Stephen is a health service researcher and has published widely on health services, public health, ethics and health policy. We hope to learn from Hampshire's experience to ensure that there is no way that the people of Gloucestershire get compulsorily medicated with fluoridated tap water."
Safe Water Campaign for Gloucestershire - Further information Tel. 01453 872915
WHAT HAVE WE BEEN DOING THIS YEAR 2008/2009
Rob Mehta, Chairperson reports ahead of our AGM:
During the last year since May 2008 , our main concern has been what is happening in Southampton as regards the proposed fluoridation of mush of the drinking water supplies.
The legal consultation process ran from September to December 2008 during which time there were a series of "drop in" events in different parts of Southampton and three public meetings chaired by Peter White from the BBC radio 4 programme "you and yours" with representatives from both sides of the fluoride debate. Rob Mehta attended two of these meetings on Oct.20th and Dec.3rd at the Southampton football stadium.
The mood of both these meetings was predominantly against fluoridation and the pro-fluoridation team led by no less than the chief dental officer Barry Cockcroft ,was very unconvincing; merely quoting questionable statistics and having no real answers to much of the medical evidence fluoridation; presented by Dr Paul Connett from the U.S.A..
The "Hampshire against fluoridation" group was well represented at the meetings and helped by their efforts 72% of people responding to the public consultation were against fluoridating the water supplies. Hampshire County Council were also unanimously against yet still the South Central Strategic Health Authority unanimously voted for fluoridating the water supply!!!!!!!
We have supported the Hampshire group financially and met up with two of their members to discuss the situation. They are trying to question the legality of the consultation process and have had a meeting with the parliamentary group UKCAF (see article by Lynne Edmunds).
During the last year since May 2008 , our main concern has been what is happening in Southampton as regards the proposed fluoridation of mush of the drinking water supplies.
The legal consultation process ran from September to December 2008 during which time there were a series of "drop in" events in different parts of Southampton and three public meetings chaired by Peter White from the BBC radio 4 programme "you and yours" with representatives from both sides of the fluoride debate. Rob Mehta attended two of these meetings on Oct.20th and Dec.3rd at the Southampton football stadium.
The mood of both these meetings was predominantly against fluoridation and the pro-fluoridation team led by no less than the chief dental officer Barry Cockcroft ,was very unconvincing; merely quoting questionable statistics and having no real answers to much of the medical evidence fluoridation; presented by Dr Paul Connett from the U.S.A..
The "Hampshire against fluoridation" group was well represented at the meetings and helped by their efforts 72% of people responding to the public consultation were against fluoridating the water supplies. Hampshire County Council were also unanimously against yet still the South Central Strategic Health Authority unanimously voted for fluoridating the water supply!!!!!!!
We have supported the Hampshire group financially and met up with two of their members to discuss the situation. They are trying to question the legality of the consultation process and have had a meeting with the parliamentary group UKCAF (see article by Lynne Edmunds).
Report from Southampton Campaign
Lynne Edmunds reports here on the meeting organised by "Southampton and district Anti-Fluoridation Campaign" Tuesday 09\06\2009.
Meeting chaired by the latter group's organiser\chair....John Spottiswood. Present at top table, Caroline Place and Anna Peckham of the Southampton group\ local M.P.'s Sarah Gidley-Lib Dem ; Alan Whitehead-Lab ; Julian Lewis- Con..
The hundred strong audience came from far afield in the U.K. and from Ireland. The National Pure Water Association was represented by several very active members. Others represented local campaigning groups, including Lynne Edmunds of the committee of the Avon , Glos. and Wilts. anti-fluoride group who has compiled the account of the meeting below.
The meeting lasted close on two hours, with a great deal of information and opinion offered from the floor. At the start Caroline Place announced that the petition handed in at 10 Downing Street earlier in the day (protesting at the health authority's decision....despite a 70% plus rejection rate by the local population to go ahead and fluoridate the water supply) currently totalling 15000 and numbers of signatures are still rising.
POSITIVE ACTION REPORTED TO/ AND ARISING FROM/ THE MEETING
John Spottiswood confirmed that an application had been made for a judicial review of the government's stance on fluoridation ( linked to the European court of justice's decision in 2005 that fluoride could not have the legal status of a food* but was a medicine and hence would have to have all the detailed conditions and related legislation applied before a decision could be taken on whether it is legal to employ it as mass medication.
If legal aid is not forthcoming then a fighting fund of a minimum £200,000 would be needed to ensure this legal decision was applied.
The European Court ruled that any food that also has a medicinal function must be regulated as a medicine. They said that this included fluoridated water. It also ruled that fluoridated water may not be used for processing food and any exporting of food treated in this way to EEC states is illegal unless it has a medicinal licence. (This could affect large areas originating exports in the U.S.A., Canada, Australia and New Zealand.)
*This decision -The opposite of what the government has asserted for several years after the European court pronounced!!!!!-was uncovered by the United Kingdom Councils against Fluoridation. An application has been made by UKCAF to the government's medicines and health products regulatory agency which is constantly informed of European legal pronouncements.
HOUSE OF COMMONS MEETING
It was reported that an early day motion on the status of fluoride as a medicine and its implications for any attempt at mass medication with it is circulating in parliament and everyone was asked to pressurise their M.P. to sign it.
Lib. Dem. M.P. Sandra Gidley pledged to try to put down a question on the above for Prime Minister's question time. A conservative councillor in the Southampton area is making a complaint to the local authority ombudsman about the phoney consultation exercise despite its legal status in the fluoridation section of the water act.
Conservative M.P. for the Southampton area reported that he would raise a question about the government campaign too fluoridate- at the regular question time held by the health service.
A regional delegate warned against assuming stringent safety over the amount of fluoride added to public water supplies, citing a situation in Australia where an overdose of 39 to 40 times the legal amount was added despite a process of three failsafe procedures- not for the first time (Australia is the only country other than Britain continuing to push for a major extension of fluoridation).
Delegates were told that the new health minister Andy Burnham was vice-president of the pro fluoride fluoridation society. The times " outed" him this month (June 09) and he then announced he was standing down!
Horrendous statistics about the increase in levels of fluorosis in children in the Republic of Ireland were reported by an Irish delegate. He reported that in 1984 the level of fluorosis was 5% and by 2002 this reached 37%. A major increase was being found among young teenagers.
Another delegate told us that in the south and west `midlands dentists had been instructed- if they found fluorosis on childrens' teeth to mark them in their reports as "sound" and not to record the fluorosis.(The York review put the levels of fluorosis of "aesthetic concern" where water had been fluoridated as between 7% and 17% of the population.)
(The British government has categorised fluorosis as a "cosmetic" condition and instructed dentists to refuse to treat it on the NHS).
So the victims have to pay the heavy cost of treating it and alleviating the visual effect (as well as the toxicity of the victim's system which its presence indicates) not just once but repeatedly since they continue to imbibe the "poison" which is causing the fluorosis.
(In 1999 government papers recorded that fluorosis was the result of "system toxicity").
Other people pointed out at the meeting that under current legal circumstances forcing fluoride on people was a civil wrong under common law and that each water company should be warned of this and threatened with legal action if it co-operated in bringing it in under current European law. (As a legally defined medicine , it has to go through the extensive conditions and checks which all medicines have to before being labelled as legal to dispense).
Meeting chaired by the latter group's organiser\chair....John Spottiswood. Present at top table, Caroline Place and Anna Peckham of the Southampton group\ local M.P.'s Sarah Gidley-Lib Dem ; Alan Whitehead-Lab ; Julian Lewis- Con..
The hundred strong audience came from far afield in the U.K. and from Ireland. The National Pure Water Association was represented by several very active members. Others represented local campaigning groups, including Lynne Edmunds of the committee of the Avon , Glos. and Wilts. anti-fluoride group who has compiled the account of the meeting below.
The meeting lasted close on two hours, with a great deal of information and opinion offered from the floor. At the start Caroline Place announced that the petition handed in at 10 Downing Street earlier in the day (protesting at the health authority's decision....despite a 70% plus rejection rate by the local population to go ahead and fluoridate the water supply) currently totalling 15000 and numbers of signatures are still rising.
POSITIVE ACTION REPORTED TO/ AND ARISING FROM/ THE MEETING
John Spottiswood confirmed that an application had been made for a judicial review of the government's stance on fluoridation ( linked to the European court of justice's decision in 2005 that fluoride could not have the legal status of a food* but was a medicine and hence would have to have all the detailed conditions and related legislation applied before a decision could be taken on whether it is legal to employ it as mass medication.
If legal aid is not forthcoming then a fighting fund of a minimum £200,000 would be needed to ensure this legal decision was applied.
The European Court ruled that any food that also has a medicinal function must be regulated as a medicine. They said that this included fluoridated water. It also ruled that fluoridated water may not be used for processing food and any exporting of food treated in this way to EEC states is illegal unless it has a medicinal licence. (This could affect large areas originating exports in the U.S.A., Canada, Australia and New Zealand.)
*This decision -The opposite of what the government has asserted for several years after the European court pronounced!!!!!-was uncovered by the United Kingdom Councils against Fluoridation. An application has been made by UKCAF to the government's medicines and health products regulatory agency which is constantly informed of European legal pronouncements.
HOUSE OF COMMONS MEETING
It was reported that an early day motion on the status of fluoride as a medicine and its implications for any attempt at mass medication with it is circulating in parliament and everyone was asked to pressurise their M.P. to sign it.
Lib. Dem. M.P. Sandra Gidley pledged to try to put down a question on the above for Prime Minister's question time. A conservative councillor in the Southampton area is making a complaint to the local authority ombudsman about the phoney consultation exercise despite its legal status in the fluoridation section of the water act.
Conservative M.P. for the Southampton area reported that he would raise a question about the government campaign too fluoridate- at the regular question time held by the health service.
A regional delegate warned against assuming stringent safety over the amount of fluoride added to public water supplies, citing a situation in Australia where an overdose of 39 to 40 times the legal amount was added despite a process of three failsafe procedures- not for the first time (Australia is the only country other than Britain continuing to push for a major extension of fluoridation).
Delegates were told that the new health minister Andy Burnham was vice-president of the pro fluoride fluoridation society. The times " outed" him this month (June 09) and he then announced he was standing down!
Horrendous statistics about the increase in levels of fluorosis in children in the Republic of Ireland were reported by an Irish delegate. He reported that in 1984 the level of fluorosis was 5% and by 2002 this reached 37%. A major increase was being found among young teenagers.
Another delegate told us that in the south and west `midlands dentists had been instructed- if they found fluorosis on childrens' teeth to mark them in their reports as "sound" and not to record the fluorosis.(The York review put the levels of fluorosis of "aesthetic concern" where water had been fluoridated as between 7% and 17% of the population.)
(The British government has categorised fluorosis as a "cosmetic" condition and instructed dentists to refuse to treat it on the NHS).
So the victims have to pay the heavy cost of treating it and alleviating the visual effect (as well as the toxicity of the victim's system which its presence indicates) not just once but repeatedly since they continue to imbibe the "poison" which is causing the fluorosis.
(In 1999 government papers recorded that fluorosis was the result of "system toxicity").
Other people pointed out at the meeting that under current legal circumstances forcing fluoride on people was a civil wrong under common law and that each water company should be warned of this and threatened with legal action if it co-operated in bringing it in under current European law. (As a legally defined medicine , it has to go through the extensive conditions and checks which all medicines have to before being labelled as legal to dispense).
Friday, 18 September 2009
Health Minister's double-speak
Letter to Western Daily Press:
Isn't it more than slightly incongruous to credit Health Secretary Andy Burnham with having 'graciously' extended our choice of GP, while he has ungraciously told local health authorities to ride roughshod over protest and public consultation in his demonic haste to see us all poisoned through our tap water with hexafluorosilicic acid?
Bernard J Seward
Isn't it more than slightly incongruous to credit Health Secretary Andy Burnham with having 'graciously' extended our choice of GP, while he has ungraciously told local health authorities to ride roughshod over protest and public consultation in his demonic haste to see us all poisoned through our tap water with hexafluorosilicic acid?
Bernard J Seward
Monday, 31 August 2009
Letter to The Citizen re 2007 Nuffield Conference
Letter sent to The Citizen last week:When the report Public Health – Ethical Issues was launched at a meeting of the Nuffield Health Council in London in November 2007, every person, body or stakeholder who had made a submission was invited to be present.
Obesity, Drug Abuse and Smoking were study areas which spawned much discussion, each augmented study group of the Council commenting upon its findings and recommendations. Fluoridation, left until the end, followed more or less that pattern, but when the group leader, Professor Jonathan Montgomery of Southampton University rose to speak, he said, “We know it (fluoridation) conflicts with the right of the individual not to be compulsorily treated, but in the absence of evidence of harm, that right can be set aside.”
I was stunned because I had hoped that Nuffield – a name synonymous (in my book) with the highest standards of public and private health - would have taken all the evidence on board to put the proverbial bomb under the false claims and spin which have characterised fluoridation since it began in post war USA. Instead, it was being used as yet another coat of whitewash, possibly to underpin a new round of fluoridation scheme proposals. With Southampton in the (low energy?) spotlight and now Bristol, it seems I guessed right!
When the chairman asked for questions, there was an eerie silence among the 300 or so attendees. I hadn’t intended to speak because I knew there were executive members of the National Pure Water Association present, but since they failed to say anything and the topic session looked like terminating without critical comment, I raised my hand and was offered the roving microphone.
I asked how fluoridated water could be defended as being safe when, by raising its temperature as when cooking or making beverages in aluminium vessels, the ppm levels of aluminium fluoride would rise by factors of 100s, even up to possibly 800 for as long as it took to heat a pan of potatoes.
I wasn’t allowed to continue because the chair, Lord Krebs, deliberately created an uproar - a rumpus among the panellists, terminating the meeting, despite being buttonholed by what seemed to be a substantial number of attendees, evidently unimpressed by his style of summarily closing the proceedings.
It was not a good day for health service democracy!
Bernard J Seward
Safe Water Campaign for Avon, Glos and Wilts
Bristol
Wednesday, 5 August 2009
Letter to Bristol press
Safe Water Campaign member writes to Bristol press:
As a former lecturer, having contributed to the practice of "handing on the inherited culture" or, as one of my cynical colleagues once put it, "casting artificial pearls before real swine", may I offer congratulations to the pupils and their teachers in the Bristol and Avon area who are turning former despair into triumph with respect to the Sats tests.
Let us hope this encouraging trend will continue upwards but on a long term perspective there could be a cloud on the horizon.
Should Bristol, South Gloucestershire; and Bath and North East Somerset fall victims to water fluoridation schemes, on evidence from the Peoples Republic of China there will be a depression of I Q scores among the young. Not only is the fluoridating agent a neurotoxin, but its one acknowledged visual outcome is dental fluorosis, an ugly, socially repulsive condition of the teeth, regardless of whether they are more decay resistant.
It was the degree of fluorosis that was found to tally with the I Q scores which alerted the Chinese health and education authorities, and caused all fluoridation schemes to be shut down permanently. No compromises there in the race to dominate the global knowledge economy.
The 2000 UK Government study, 'The York Review' found fluorosis to affect 42 per cent of consumers, 12 per cent really seriously. This would translate in Bristol alone to something approaching five and a half thousand children of school age disadvantaged both by appearance and inhibited intellectual skills.
Can we afford to allow this to happen when the claimed 'benefit' projected for our neighbours in Hampshire, also threatened at this time in spite (real bureaucratic spite) of a massive public NO vote, amounts to no more than 0.6 of a tooth per child per year?
Bernard J Seward
As a former lecturer, having contributed to the practice of "handing on the inherited culture" or, as one of my cynical colleagues once put it, "casting artificial pearls before real swine", may I offer congratulations to the pupils and their teachers in the Bristol and Avon area who are turning former despair into triumph with respect to the Sats tests.
Let us hope this encouraging trend will continue upwards but on a long term perspective there could be a cloud on the horizon.
Should Bristol, South Gloucestershire; and Bath and North East Somerset fall victims to water fluoridation schemes, on evidence from the Peoples Republic of China there will be a depression of I Q scores among the young. Not only is the fluoridating agent a neurotoxin, but its one acknowledged visual outcome is dental fluorosis, an ugly, socially repulsive condition of the teeth, regardless of whether they are more decay resistant.
It was the degree of fluorosis that was found to tally with the I Q scores which alerted the Chinese health and education authorities, and caused all fluoridation schemes to be shut down permanently. No compromises there in the race to dominate the global knowledge economy.
The 2000 UK Government study, 'The York Review' found fluorosis to affect 42 per cent of consumers, 12 per cent really seriously. This would translate in Bristol alone to something approaching five and a half thousand children of school age disadvantaged both by appearance and inhibited intellectual skills.
Can we afford to allow this to happen when the claimed 'benefit' projected for our neighbours in Hampshire, also threatened at this time in spite (real bureaucratic spite) of a massive public NO vote, amounts to no more than 0.6 of a tooth per child per year?
Bernard J Seward
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