CONTROVERSIAL plans to add fluoride to Southampton's tap water have today taken a major step forward. Health chiefs have agreed to launch a public consultation gauging opinion of the city's residents on proposals that would see 67 per cent of them receiving fluoridated water. Southampton has one of the poorest records for dental health among children of anywhere in the country and the city's Primary Care Trust (PCT) sees fluoridation as a solution. The legitimate records actually prove this claim to be an outright lie. Southampton has one of the country's best dental health records for children. So has Bristol which is why we may have to watch our backs.
Today its call for a £178,000 public debate on plans to add the mineral to mains supplies was backed by the South Central Strategic Health Authority (SCSHA), which oversees healthcare in the region. Mineral? What mineral? Silicofluoride is a compound and a very dangerous one containing traces of heavy metals and radionuclides which should have no place whatever in anything connected with public health.
Despite opposition from campaigners who claim fluoridation has negative side effects including brittle bones, brain damage skeletal fluorosis and bone cancer, the SCSHA board unanimously agreed to launch the public consultation. In that case, who will independently write the protocol for a balanced case - the plusses and minuses - when the corporate minds say there are no minuses?
"We want to find out the level of public support and want to gauge opinion once people have the chance to understand what it's all about," said Professor John Newton, regional director of public health. We've had plenty of chance, Professor Newton, thanks to the internet. You can't continue to hide behind pseudo-science and business-orientated prejudice to con the public into accepting something likely to really spoil its general health and quality of life.
The consultation is likely to start in August. Right in the middle of the holiday season when lots of us will be seeking the sun in far off places. That is strategically clever. We all come back to a done deal. Is that the way it's going to be?
The results will be independently assessed and will go before the health authorities board for a final decision in January next year. We'd all like to know who or what ranks as independent in this long-running scam, once described by three distinguished scientists as the greatest scientific fraud perpetrated upon the public in the whole of the 20th century.
Jon Reeve
From The Website of The Southern Echo
