Hampshire anti-fluoridation campaigners come to Stroud

Here is some of our press release from our meeting which was a very useful and inspiring evening:

HAMPSHIRE ANTI-FLOURIDATION CAMPAIGNERS COME TO STROUD

Health bosses voted in February to add fluoride to tap water in Southampton despite the County Council and 72% of 10,000 respondents in a public consultation opposing the plan. The move concerns Safe Water Campaign for Gloucestershire members who see it as a step closer to fluoridation locally. Caroline Place and Anna Peckham from Hampshire Against Fluoridation (i) travelled up on Wednesday 22nd April to share their campaign with Gloucestershire activists.

Cllr Philip Booth, Secretary of the Safe Water Campaign, which has over 1,500 Gloucestershire supporters and meets each month in Stroud, said: "The Hampshire campaign was hugely successful in getting the message across, but the health authority has refused to listen to the scientific evidence. They have also ignored the will of the people: 72% didn't want it and yet they still are going ahead. It is deeply unethical and sadly will lead to attempts to introduce fluoridation in other parts of the country. We learnt lots from these two Hampshire campaigners about how we can build a campaign to ensure water fluoridation does not happen here."

The Hampshire decision is the first time a health trust in England has been allowed to introduce fluoridation under the new law that this Government has brought in. NHS Bristol have announced last month that they are now considering the fluoridation of Bristol’s drinking water.

Philip Booth added: "When Green MEP Dr Caroline Lucas raised concerns about the fluoridation scheme with the European Commission last year, it admitted that the potential risks from water fluoridation are not yet fully understood. Is it really wise to expose people to a mass-medicating process that has never been risk-assessed? Fluoride, or fluorosilicic acid, is an untested hazardous waste, and to add it to drinking water to supposedly prevent tooth decay is disproportionate and cannot be justified. Water fluoridation has simply not been proven to be effective for teeth, and some studies have even indicated links between fluoridation and serious ill health effects, including thyroid problems, skeletal fluorosis, bone cancers and mental problems.

A recent Freedom of Information request (ii) by the Green party revealed that 76% of Southampton's NHS dentists are not taking new patients. And the controversial Southampton decision came on the very day that new dentistry data was released, which showed that less than half of adults are using NHS dentists and the proportion of children accessing NHS dentistry in Southampton has fallen by 2.4% over the past two years (iii).

Philip Booth added: "Trying to fix NHS dentistry problems by unethical and potentially illegal mass medication is simply wrong. Southampton needs to fix its access to dentistry. Having less than a quarter of its dental practices taking on new patients means that many poorer people are forced to go without dental care. The new statistics have also shown the proportion of children accessing NHS dental care is falling. We need a proper dental health strategy founded on education, good diet and access to free dental health care. In place of mass fluoridation, the UK Government could be using targeted schemes such as providing free toothpaste for poor families - resorting to a technofix that won't solve the problem but will breach everyone's universally-acknowledged human right not to be medicated without their consent is just plain wrong."

Dr. Peter Mansfield, a physician from the UK and an advisory board member of the York review said: "No physician in his right senses would prescribe for a person he has never met, whose medical history he does not know, a substance which is intended to create bodily change, with the advice: 'Take as much as you like, but you will take it for the rest of your life because some children suffer from tooth decay. ' It is a preposterous notion."

Notes:

(i) See: http://hampshireagainstfluoridation.blogspot.com/
(ii) FOI response to the Green Party dated 3rd Feb 2009 showed that of Southampton PCT's 25 NHS dental practices only 6 were accepting new patients in December 2008.
(iii) See: here.

Photos: from Wednesday Rob Mehta (Safe Water Campaign chair) with our visitors Caroline Place and Anna Peckham plus in the group photo:
Back row left to right - Anna Appelmelk, Tony Burton, Philip Booth, Bernard Seward
Front row left to right - Anna Peckham, Lynne Edmunds, Caroline Place, Louise McLellan

Avebury and dog meat

Letter from Bristol member to Southampton Echo:

In the fantasy world of creative prose which fraudulently conceived the NHS propaganda booklet underpinning the Hampshire fluoridation consultation, the almost unremembered figure of Lord Avebury (a failed Liberal politician), being described as "the well-known supporter of human rights" was cited as having "pointed out" that fluoridation was NOT mass medication. There was no reference to any source by which he would have reached that conclusion; and nothing further about it at all. It was a case of "a noble Lord had said it; it was a gold-plated assurance, therefore no further discussion was needed."

Avebury might have been better remembered for drawing to himself a measure of public ridicule for declaring his intention to leave his body, not to medical science, but to a dog-meat factory. Sir Clement Freud, at that time, was hosting dog meat advertisements on ITV and his reference, on a radio comedy show, to 'nourishing Avebury meaty chunks' brought the proverbial house down.

Couldn't the NHS have done better than to choose a titled crackpot to convince us of the fraud it was mandating upon us?

Bernard J Seward

Government fixing consultations?

The Government has been accused of fixing the outcome of public consultations on health policy after it emerged that reviews were flooded with block votes from groups funded entirely by the taxpayer. This illustrates perfectly why the 70% public vote against fluoridation in Southampton was brushed aside - and why the same could happen in Bristol, Gloucestershire and elsewhere. See Telegraph here and more re the ridiculous consultation in Southampton here. Join us this Wednesday at 5.30 to here more in Stroud - call 01453755451 for more info.

Hampshire campaigners to help us

Here is our press release that went out today about our meeting on 22nd April:

TWO HAMPSHIRE ANTI-FLOURIDATION CAMPAIGNERS COME TO STROUD AS FEARS GROW OF THREAT TO GLOS WATER

Health bosses voted in February to add fluoride to tap water in Southampton despite the County Council and 72% of 10,000 respondents in a public consultation opposing the plan. The move raises concerns for the Gloucestershire Safe Water Campaign who see it as a step closer to fluoridation locally.

Cllr Philip Booth, Secretary of the Safe Water Campaign, which has over 1,500 Gloucestershire supporters and meets each month in Stroud, said: "The Hampshire campaign was hugely successful in getting the message across, but the health authority has refused to listen to the evidence. They have also ignored the will of the people: 72% didn't want it and yet they still are going to do it. It is deeply unethical and sadly will lead to attempts to introduce fluoridation in other parts of the country. We hope to learn from these two Hampshire campaigners so that we can ensure water fluoridation does not happen here."

The Safe Water Campaign will meet at 5.30pm in Stroud on 22nd April. Please call Rob Mehta on 01453 763943 if you would like to attend.

The Hampshire decision is the first time a health trust in England has been allowed to introduce fluoridation under the new law that this Government has brought in. NHS Bristol have announced last month that they are now considering the fluoridation of Bristol’s drinking water.

Philip Booth added: "This is clearly a human rights issue: no one should be medicated without their consent. Furthermore the Government's own scientific review found very little evidence to show that fluoridation of our water supplies improves dental heath. Moreover, its chair, Professor Sheldon, stated that 'the review did not show water fluoridation to be safe'. Many people have real health concerns about adding fluoride to our water."

Dr. Peter Mansfield, a physician from the UK and an advisory board member of the York review said: "No physician in his right senses would prescribe for a person he has never met, whose medical history he does not know, a substance which is intended to create bodily change, with the advice: 'Take as much as you like, but you will take it for the rest of your life because some children suffer from tooth decay. ' It is a preposterous notion."

Philip Booth concluded: "Poverty and the over-availability of addictive, sugar-rich foods are significant causes of tooth decay. But the Government is unlikely to challenge the profitable position of the major food manufacturers and retailers who benefit at the expense of our children's health - and teeth. Better dental care and education is also needed, but that too is hampered by higher dental charges for adults as the Government has overseen dentistry move into the private sector - and for many in Gloucestershire finding a dentist at all is a serious challenge."

Fluoride and DNA

One view re fluoride and DNA from one of the Safe Water members in Bristol - sent as a letter to the Daily Telegraph:

Robert Colville is wrong to label DNA as an infallable way to sort the innocent from the guilty.

DNA tests can be irreproducible for many reasons, and comparisons are never foolproof. One well-documented way in which DNA sequences can become disrupted is via the ongoing consumption of artificially fluoridated drinking water (or via ongoing exposure to any other internalisable fluoride source, including fluoride-polluted air). This is linked with the ability of the fluoride ion, even at the very low levels involved, to inhibit the enzymes which are essential for the repair of damaged or broken DNA strands.

Somebody should have reminded Health Secretary Alan Johnson about this before he commissioned more worthless fluoridation consultations. Denying the people their individual right not to be 'treated' with fluoridation chemicals - on the highly contentious basis of demonstrable juvenile dental benefits, or for any other reason - is not the stuff of a free society and is almost certainly illegal under fundamental EU Human Rights legislation. This is a matter that cries out to be tested in Court at the earliest possible opportunity, even if it makes crime detection only marginally less reliable!

Bernard J Seward
Bristol BS9 4QP

___________________________________________________

I quote the references as I find them in Groves B
Fluoride - Drinking Ourselves to Death
Newleaf 2001

Klein W. et al
DNA repair and environmental substances
Angaw Bader - Klimaheclkunde 1977 24(3) 218-23

Mohammed A, Chandler ME
Cytological effects of sodium fluoride on mice
Fluoride 1982; 15(3) 110-18

US National Institute of Environmental Sciences
In cultured human and rodent cells, the weight of evidence leads to the conclusion that fluoride exposure results in increased chromosome aberration
Zeiger E, Shelby MD, Witt KL
Genetic Toxicity of Fluoride
Environ Mol Mutagen 1993; 21:309-18

Response to Daily Mail re compulsory fluoridation

DEBATE: IS COMPULSORY FLUORIDATION A GOOD IDEA?

In response to Mr Anthony Plant’s letter of 17/03/09

The dental profession itself acknowledges that in fluoridated areas the incidence of dental fluorosis (systemic fluoride poisoning) is 48%, of which 12.5% is of cosmetic concern. and hence likely to cause severe psychological damage. This of itself, when set against the claimed 15% reduction of decayed missing or filled teeth (which over 50 studies have shown to be merely the delay of decay for about a year) would certainly be more than enough in the case of most tested medicines to have fluorides banned from public use.

In the 40 years or so that the Birmingham area has been fluoridated, alongside the hugely increased spending on dental care, there has been no systematic research to prove the safety of fluoride in the water. The population of the West Midlands may thus be unsuspecting guinea pigs on which to test a chemical shown by international research to have a distinct dumbing down effect.

Fluoride is a cumulative poison which can even be absorbed through the skin. At a dilution of 1 part per million the effect (in most cases) may not be dramatic, however, serious scientific studies suggest many damaging effects- e.g. lowering of I.Q.(20 plus studies), increased incidence of cancer in teenage boys, thyroid damage, kidney damage, brittle bones et alia.

In 1977 fluoridation was terminated throughout the entire country of Chile due to a clear increase in infant mortality. A report stated that poorly fed children were especially at risk.

In 1972 in fluoridated Gateshead a total of 34 babies under the age of 12 months died, (8 being cot deaths). This was 50% above the national average!!

Is this what we want?

Rob Mehta – Safe Water Campaign for Avon Glos. and Wilts.
Stroud GL5 1LY