Health Authorites failing to protect us from fluoride poisoning

South Central Strategic Health Authority are due to take a major step towards fluoridation of the drinking water supply for Southampton and much of Eastleigh and Totton at their Board meeting on Thursday 29th May. If they accept the recommendations in the Board Paper they will embark on a consultation process with the intention of putting fluoride in the drinking water. South West Hampshire Green Party and Hampshire Against Fluoridation have vigorously opposed moves towards fluoridation and have made a detailed response (see below). In this response they accuse the Health Authority of:
• Using biased and misleading statements. This includes scare mongering about dental health, whereas in fact the dental health in Southampton is one of the best of any city in the UK and in Europe based on the published statistics.
• Ignoring compelling and valid scientific research that clearly shows the major health dangers from fluoridation (increased cancers, brittle bones, increased senility, low IQ in children, high levels of miscarriages and still births).
• Refusing to listen to why other countries in Europe have banned fluoride and refusing to hear the case against fluoride at the Authority.• Using unscientific theories and assertions based on no evidence
• Being deliberately misleading by quoting selectively and inappropriately from the government’s own York Review on fluoridation
• Failing to take account of research that demonstrates that the use of dental data on five year olds to justify fluoridation is not only seriously unsound, but fails to recognise that the data in fact demonstrates that we are poisoning our children in a systemic (whole body) fashion in fluoridated areas.• Not taking their basic duty seriously to ‘first, physician, do no harm’ and not taking the precautionary approach to medicine
• Failing to show any cost benefit from fluoridation, probably because the figures nationwide show no cost benefits. Wolverhampton shows a more than doubling of dental health costs in the five years following fluoridation.
• Being unacceptably secretive over the basis for their decision, which implies that the basis is fundamentally flawed. Why does the Authority continue to refuse to divulge the details and the Technical Report even when asked for it under the Freedom of Information Act?
• Setting up plans for a heavily biased ‘consultation’ process that would involve a one sided presentation of the case. A biased consultation is not a real consultation but a PR exercise set up to get a predetermined result.
• Fails to take account of the fact that mass medication using the water supply is highly unethical expressly forbidden by the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine.
• Does not take account of the fact that fluoride compounds have never been tested nor approved for addition to water to cause a medicinal effect, which is required for something seeking a medicinal effect. Spokesperson John Spottiswoode said "This report confirms our worst fears. The report fails to take account of the mass of scientific evidence pointing to major health problems from a sustained intake of fluoride and fails to seek to protect the health of us all.” “It is hard to have to attack a Health Authority for what amounts to serious health failings when we all want to trust and rely on their professionalism and good will. We rely on them to use proper evidence based medicine. However the Health Authorities are refusing to release details behind the report, even when asked under the Freedom of Information legislation. What have they got to hide? Why won't they be open with the public about their true reasons for pushing fluoridation? I thought that the Freedom of Information Act was meant to stop this sort of over-secretive behaviour. What else can we not trust them about? The Strategic Health Authority is using statistics like a drunk for support, not for enlightenment, and ignoring research that does not tell them what they want to hear. This is a serious condemnation and not one we take lightly. It is something we would not say unless we felt we had to and it was fully justified by the facts. ” “This report is a disgrace to medical science and the dangerous addiction to adding toxic chemicals to our food and water must stop immediately. If the population of Southampton, Eastleigh and Totton do not object now, and in the strongest ways, then it looks like we will end up with the toxin fluoride in our drinking water."