So SCHER’s landmark opinion on 14^th June 2010 completely vindicates the position of the Directing Board of the 25,000 member International Society of Doctors for Environment (ISDE), who warned the European Commission in May 2009 that fluoridation is a medical matter which SCHER is not qualified to risk assess.  This view is now supported by SCHER itself whose ‘Pre-Consultation Opinion’ asking for yet further public comment reveals the dilemma of its position.

When the European Commission’s Health & Consumer Protection directorate, SANCO, rejected the advice of ISDE doctors, it relied on a number of the Commission’s own answers to repeated questions from MEPs in Ireland and England, the only two widely-fluoridated areas in the EU. Now that one of Europe’s top scientific committees has stated that fluoridation constitutes ‘systemic fluoride treatment’, the Commission’s answers have been exposed at best as misinformed and at worst misleading. Campaigners and MEPs in England and Ireland have invoked at length the many ECJ rulings which amply clarify what constitutes a medicine, of which the Commission and especially SANCO’s Food Law section are fully aware but which they continue to ignore.

“We also rejected SANCO’s mandate to SCHER last year for another glaring error, namely that a non-food scientific committee with a remit to deal with assessment of environmentally polluting existing substances, was assigned the task instead of EMEA, the European medicines regulator” said VOICE campaigner Robert Pocock. He added “To hide this major flaw, SCHER was instructed to collaborate with the food safety watchdog (EFSA) even though fluoride is a) not an essential nutrient and b) it must be regulated as a medicine under EU legislation because a medical claim is made for it”.

As EFSA is demonstrating right now to many health-food operators, no food may make a health claim unless fully substantiated scientifically, however SCHER has stated (p27) that ‘the caries preventive effect of systemic fluoride treatment is rather poor’ so fluoride in drinking water, could not even be approved under the Health Claims Directive.

SCHER’s intractable problems become all too evident when it states that ‘it is assumed that all ingested fluoride (ion) is 100% bioavailable’. Yet the immediately preceding section notes that not all forms are equally bioavailable and very little (naturally-occurring) calcium fluoride is absorbed or retained in the body. It has been known for seventy-five years (Kick et al) that at least a third of the soluble fluoride from drinking water is retained versus very little calcium fluoride, almost all of which is excreted.

The EFSA input to this SCHER offering is immediately recognisable as when daily safe fluoride intake is calculated with remarkable accuracy for various ages from 1 yr old to 15yrs. Yet when it comes to the safe intake for vulnerable infants –up to 1 yr old — no scientific substantiation is offered even though the infant intake is double the safe dose for older children and adults. While EFSA’s recent opinions on ingested fluoride have been widely rejected not least because of its  failure to distinguish the very different toxicology of different fluoride forms, where SCHER does name the most commonly used fluoridating chemical, it notes that ‘the toxicology of hexafluorosilicates is incompletely investigated’ (3.1.).

Since however SCHER has had the courage to admit there are huge gaps in the toxicology of  these same  fluoride chemicals used to treat people, it is now incumbent on the European Commission to immediately assign this assessment to the proper authority with the competence and expertise to evaluate the safety of treatment chemicals (ie medicines) which is EMEA. This pre-consultation opinion is a brave admission by SCHER that it is simply not qualifed for the task.

The final embarrassment for SANCO must surely be the reason it gave for dismissing VOICE’s appeal for Rapid Response to the dental fluorosis epidemic among children in Ireland, where every month some sixty teenagers in fluoridated areas get moderate or severe dental fluorosis from this crude one-size-fits-all treatment.

SANCO rejected our appeal on the basis that there was allegedly a substantial body of scientific evidence supporting fluoridation, a claim that SCHER has now shown to be false. And instead of dragging European scientists into further embarrassment, the Commission must invoke an immediate investigation by the proper agency, EMEA under Rapid Response. Otherwise each month, hundreds of Irish children (and many more in England) will remain unprotected from an illegal, crude and ineffective systemic fluoride treatment which carries a high risk of dental fluorosis.

ENDS            Info on 086 811 3071

NOTES

1. Pre-consultation Opinion is on :

http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/consultations/public_consultations/scher_cons_05_en.htm <http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/consultations/public_consultations/scher_cons_05_en.htm>

All interested parties are invited to submit their comments and proposals on the preliminary opinion to the following website <http://ec.europa.eu/yourvoice/ipm/forms/dispatch?form=Fluoride> by 15 Sept. 2010.

2. International Doctors for Environment letter to SCHER http://www.ideaireland.org/isdeletter30052009.htm

3. While exposure to systemic fluoride is acknowledged by SCHER to carry a risk of dental fluorosis in children, the more severe forms (euphemistically called ‘mild’, ‘moderate’ and ‘severe’) are nowhere illustrated  or even defined in the opinion but are illustrated below.

Moderate dental   fluorosis

Mild dental fluorosis

Severe dental fluorosis

Normal enamel

By the age of 15 yrs, approx 1,100 children in Ireland have developed ‘mild’ dental fluorosis. Only 63% of 15 yr olds resident in fluoridated areas of ROI have ‘normal’ enamel.

Pics also from Oral Health Services Research Centre, Cork.

Fluorosis of the severity shown below is entirely absent from unfluoridated N.Ireland per the same North South Survey. [There is some mild' fluorosis in N.I. but no 'moderate' or 'severe' types]

Co Kildare GP Dr Andrew Rynne told IMN last week that he reported an adverse reaction of dental fluorosis, under Recital 9 of Directive 2001/20/EC (Clinical Trials on Medicinal Products for Human Use), known as the Clinical Trials Directive, from the intake of hydrofluorosilicic acid, which is not on the Community Register of Medicinal Products.

Citing a 2002 survey which identified a 37 per cent incidence of dental fluorosis in children residing in fluoridated areas in the South versus 14 per cent in Northern Ireland (unfluoridated water), Dr Rynne claimed that in the six years since the clinical trials regulations came into effect, 15,000 minors in Ireland have suffered dental fluorosis. He alleges, in the report dated June 1, that the fluoridisation of water is an unauthorised, obsolete and repetitive clinical trial on at least 70 per cent of the Irish population.

Since the sole reason for the administration of hydrofluorosilicic acid, an active substance also used for electroplating and refining lead, to drinking water is to prevent dental caries, it satisfies the definition of a medicinal product in Article 1(2) of Directive 2001/ 83/EC, charged Dr Rynne.

He alleges, “Neither the daily dose which is delivered via public drinking water, nor interactions with other drugs are known. Control of administration … is impossible because there is no control of individual consumption of public drinking water. The relevant medical history of all those subjected to this active substance is currently unknown since the product is administered from birth.” For more see http://www.imn.ie/index.php/news/3707-thousands-of-suspected-fluorosis-cases-reported

For more information on the regulation of clinical trials in Europe please see http://voiceireland.org/water/fluoridation/fluoridation-slammed-for-adverse-reactions-in-paediatric-clinical-trial/

Dublin, 11 June 2010

Clane GP, Dr Andrew Rynne, alerted the European medicines regulator (EMEA), and all other national competent medicinal authorities across the EU, on 1^st June 2010 to the adverse reaction of dental fluorosis in the paediatric population in Ireland. The alert was issued under rules governing adverse reactions to medicines in Europe (EudraCT) and is linked to the use of the industrial chemical hydrofluosilicic acid in drinking water. Administration of hydrofluosilicic acid is not medically authorised and continues despite flagrant infringement of theClinical Trials Directive (2001/20/EC). Recital 18 of this directive requires the Irish medicines regulator to issue a notice of suspension to cease the trial because its continuation involves an unacceptable level of risk.

Since the directive came into effect in Ireland in 2004, some 12,000 children in fluoridated parts of Ireland have had an adverse reaction in the form of ‘severe, moderate or mild’ dental fluorosis with another 50,000 children affected by milder, but still permanent, forms of dental fluorosis. VOICE campaigner Robert Pocock commented, “many teenagers are fluoride’s unfortunate victims because fluorosis is irreversible”.

The Clinical Trials Directive and a follow up Directive (2003/94/EC) require all unauthorised substances used in trials as investigational medicinal products to demonstrate good manufacturing practice. Since hydrofluosilicic acid is simply an industrial chemical, whose main use is to etch glass or metal, it will never meet good manufacturing criteria for medicinal products. These include a pharmaceutical quality assurance system to protect trial subjects, which is mandatory for all clinical trials of human medicines.

In order to guarantee the quality of all investigational medicinal products, yet another Directive (2005/28/EC) sets down minimum requirements for and management of authorisations to manufacture or import such products—none of these directives have been complied with by the Irish health minister. It is also not surprising that hydrofluosilicic acid is not on the Community Register of Medicinal Products.

Dr Rynne has also quoted Regulation (EC 1901/2006) on medicinal products for paediatric use, which warns of the increased risks of adverse reactions due to inadequate dosage information. The adverse reactions in the paediatric population confirms that the dosage in Ireland is too high. The Regulation also warns of not subjecting the paediatric population to unnecessary clinical trials, especially in cases where no application for a paediatric use marketing authorisation has ever been submitted in the European Union.

With such cavalier disregard for legislation on clinical trails of human medicines, the Irish Government can only be brought to book by the European Commission, which is little comfort.  The medicinal regulation of hydrofluosilicic acid in Europe has to-date, been of the light-touch, Irish variety. However, now that European regulation of medicines has been assigned to the new Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection (DG SANCO), it is incumbent on new commissioner, John Dalli, to face up to the effects of this non-enforcement. The clinical trial involving children treated with an industrial, not a pharmaceutical substance, in a one-size-fits-all dosage has been fully exposed. The unacceptably high risks of non-regulation demand nothing less than an immediate prohibition on administering hydrofluosilicic acid to public drinking water.

Press Release, Dublin The risks to children exposed to fluoridated Irish water are highlighted in a scientific review just published in the peer-reviewed journalToxicology [1]. It adds more weight to the call by the report of the Oireachtas Joint Health Committee in 2007 (www.fluoridereports.com) to stop fluoridation to protect children from the irreversible damage to tooth enamel by dental fluorosis.

Study author and scientific director of the Alliance for Natural Health(www.anhcampaign.org) Dr Robert  Verkerk, argues that if  the same methods used by European and American authorities for risk assessment of vitamins and minerals are applied to fluoride, then fluoridation of the water supply would need to be banned due to the high risk of dental fluorosis in children.  Said Dr Verkerk “Under current risk management criteria, the dental fluorosis risk to children, which is the most sensitive risk factor, should mean that mass fluoridation of the public water supply is stopped immediately. This is borne out by actual data from Ireland which shows that every third child is affected”.

In 2006 the Oral Health Services Research Centre in Cork’s final report ‘North South Survey of Children’s Oral Health in Ireland’ [2] revealed a 700% rise in dental fluorosis among 15-year-olds since 1984. So the Health Service Executive and the health minister must know that each year some 1,800 15-year-olds resident in fluoridated areas are victims of the more severe forms of dental fluorosis. The same survey showed that in fluoridated areas only 63% of this age group have normal tooth enamel –further evidence of the harm done by fluoride to thousands of children in Ireland since its publication.

This alarming increase was well flagged by the hundred-strong Irish Dentists Opposing Fluoridation who see it in their surgeries every day [3]. However the token response by health minister, Mary Harney was to reduce the amount of fluoride added, but so minimal as to make little difference to the incidence of fluorosis. According to the UK NHS York Review (2000), the minister’s new fluoride concentration of 0.7ppm in drinking water still results in over four in ten people getting dental fluorosis.

VOICE spokesman Robert Pocock added “ Here is yet another scandal covered up by health minister Mary Harney. She still claims that formula for Irish infants should be made up with fluoridated tap water [4]. This is in complete disregard of repeated international warnings to the contrary from the American Dental Association, the US Center for Disease Control in Atlanta and even the British Fluoridation Society due to the risk of dental fluorosis.. Even worse, the same career promoters of Irish fluoridation like Prof Seamus O’Hickey, chairman of her Expert Body on Fluorides and Health, do not even admit that ‘obvious fluorosis is a health problem’ at all pretending instead that it is merely cosmetic.”[5]

Children who may be victims of this life-long disfigurement have also been abandoned by the Irish Dental Association because when in March 2007 we appealed to that body to issue warnings to parents in Ireland similar to those of the  American Dental Association, it refused outright referring us instead to the same career fluoridation promoters like Prof O’Hickey, whose Expert Body has not even hired a toxicologist.

Against this background of outright denial, VOICE lodged a petition (No 210 of 2007 ) with the European Parliament and have recently appealed to MEPs in the Environment committee to call the European Commission to account by enforcing the Medicines Directive(2004/27/EC)here. This directive prohibits all unauthorised substances, including the fluoride added to Irish drinking water, from being presented  to prevent or treat a condition (dental caries). Each month that this directive is flouted by the Irish government, another one hundred and fifty teenagers living in fluoridated areas develop permanent and irreversible disfigurement of their teeth.

ENDS

More on www.anhcampaign.org and 086 811 3071

Notes:

[1] http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tox.2010.02.011

[2] North South Survey of Children’s Oral Health in Ireland, 2003, Preliminary Report

http://www.dohc.ie/publications/?year=2006 pages 56 to 61.

[3] http://homepage.eircom.net/~aud/home.htm

[4] and http://www.fluoridesandhealth.ie/documents/Progress_Report.pdf pp24-26 & 34

[5] http://www.fluoridesandhealth.ie/background/fluoridation_forum.pdf page 126

and http://www.fluoridesandhealth.ie/documents/Progress_Report.pdf p23

PICS of dental fluorosis

Dental fluorosis incidence in fluoridated areas of Ireland.

Risk of disfiguring dental fluorosis occur each year in some 400 fifteen year olds in fluoridated Ireland who develop ‘moderate’ fluorosis and a further 300 with  ‘severe’ fluorosis, see pictures below.

Source North South Survey of Children’s Oral Health in Ireland 2002. (Authors H.Whelton, E.Crowley, D.O’Mullane, M.Harding, H Guiney, M.Cronin, E.Flannery, V.Kelleher.) Final Report December 2006. For % of children affected, by age, please see  http://www.dohc.ie/publications/?year=2006 pages 56 to 61.

Pictures available from Oral Health Services Research Centre, Cork.

Its competence already queried at inception in June 2009 by International Society of Doctors for Environment(ISDE) (1), the EU’s Scientific Committee on Health and Environmental Risks (SCHER) which is investigating fluoridation chemicals, has now been accused of a conflict of interest. SCHER’s credibility is thus further compromised by one of its members having actively co-promoted fluoridation in Switzerland.

Prof Ackermann-Liebrich was involved with others in needlessly prolonging fluoridation in Basel-city for several years until in 2003, the Swiss Canton stopped fluoridation because even after 40 years, no study could prove the caries-preventive effect of fluoridation. Basel-city also cited the risk of fluorosis of bone in particular the risks to young children and babies. The only EU countries still allowing this practice are Ireland and a few English water PLCs (Scotland, Wales, N.Ireland and the Isle of Man reject it outright).

The conflict of interest charge is contained in an Open Letter (2) to new Maltese Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection (SANCO) Mr John Dalli. The letter reproduces WHO data for Malta showing no relationship between dental caries and fluoride content in drinking water. Other WHO international data for 12 yr olds was also provided to Mr Dalli that similarly found no statistical support for fluoridated water’s claimed caries prevention.

The letter is from Austrian physicist Rudolf Ziegelbecker son of the late Rudolf Ziegelbecker, scientist from Graz, whose compelling statistical evidence after many years research, demonstrates the fallacy of water fluoridation. The late Rudolf Ziegelbecker’s evidence was a decisive contribution in persuading German-speaking nations in Europe to reject fluoridation and they were later followed in the 1990s by the neighbouring Czech and Slovak republics, by former East Germany, Hungary and Poland totalling some 100 million in today’s EU.

While alerting the new Comissioner to the fallacy of water fluoridation, Mr Ziegelbecker also criticised the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) for its persistent failure a) to recognise fluoride’s inefficacy as a caries preventitive and b) its setting of tolerable upper limits that do not protect against harmful effects. He quotes correspondence about this important matter from his late father to EFSA members, yet not a single opinion issued by several recent EFSA panels references any of Ziegelbecker’s research or any other scientific papers which refuted the scientific basis of caries-fluoride prophylaxis. The Open Letter explicitly questions why the Commission has instructed SCHER to collaborate closely with an agency whose work on fluoride has been challenged because it is so manifestly ill-informed and unbalanced.

Mr Ziegelbecker appeals to Commissioner Dalli to use his best efforts to stop fluoridation throughout the EU because of the immediate risk it poses to children, citing the large rise in dental fluorosis in Irish children.

Finally, in expressing disapproval of the suppression of independent fluoride research in the medical literature – Medline still does not include the highly respected open access journal of the International Society for Fluoride Research (ISFR) Fluoride – the Austrian notes how difficult it is for EU consumers to obtain independent scientific information on the subject of fluoride.

Comment from Robert Pocock of VOICE of Irish Concern for the Environment:

“ Mr Ziegelbecker’s revelations about how most of central Europe for very sound reasons stopped fluoridation, should be a wake-up call to DG SANCO. Mr Dalli must now recognise that his predecessor’s decision to involve SCHER and EFSA in assessing water fluoridation was thoroughly misguided. Unless SCHER now also finds that fluoridation of drinking water is fundamentally flawed, its report will command no credibility across Europe. Indeed if this committee — qualified to assess risks from environmental pollutants only — is to emerge with any credit from the mess visited on it by the EU Commission, SCHER must now state unequivocally that fluoridation can only be assessed as a medicine ie pharmacologically.

Unless the EU Commission faces up to its regulatory duty to enforce the Medicines Directive*, which prohibits any medicinal claim to be made for a substance without a medicinal authorisation, it will not regain EU consumer trust, least of all in Ireland and England where unauthorised and therefore illegal fluoridation chemicals are added to drinking water.

Consumers in both fluoridated Ireland and England are further disadvantaged because their respective governments officially deny the severity of dental fluorosis caused by fluoridation, with the Irish government calling it ‘a cosmetic condition’ and the UK government suppressing fluorosis evidence completely.”

* Directive 2001/83/EC as amended by Directive 2004/27/EC and effective 30th October 2004, classifies all products which are presented to ‘treat or prevent’ disease or which have a ‘pharmacological , immunological or metabolic action’ as medicinal products. The only exemptions are products which are ‘clearly’ foods, food supplements etc. The amending directive makes clear that ‘in cases of doubt’ (ie ‘borderline products’) medicinal law shall have supremacy over any other EU law. Under these terms hydrofluorosilicic acid whose stated purpose is to prevent dental caries, must be regarded as medicinal. However drinking water medicated with fluorosilicic acid is not classified as medicinal by the UK or Irish government medicines regulator or by the European Medicines Agency.

The EU Commission has presided over this ten year regulatory failure despite appeals from Irish and UK MEPs and the European Parliament’s Petition Committee which lodged a petition against fluoridation (No 210 of 2007.(3)

(1) http://www.ukcaf.org/files/michael_letter_re_scher_mandate.pdf

(2) Open Letter copied in full below

(3) http://voiceireland.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/090609_Water-Fluoridation-in-the-EU-1999_final.pdf

Mag. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. techn. e-mail: zbr@aon.at

Rudolf Ziegelbecker

Franckstraße 24

8010 Graz Tel.: 0043 – 316 – 34 96 53

Mr. John DALLI
European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy (CA.16)

personally
European Commission
B – 1049 Brussels

Feb 19, 2010

Open Letter
Dear Mr Dalli,

I welcome your assurances to MEPs at the European Parliament hearing on 14.01.2010 that

“The underlying theme of my work will be Patients First, Consumers First” and that you wanted “well-informed consumers who can take educated decisions on the goods and services they consume”. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/expert/infopress_page/008-67215-013-01-03-901-20100113IPR67206-13-01-2010-2010-false/default_en.htm

Your focus is very appropriate because there is an issue currently before DG SANCO which adversely affects many consumers, namely the negative health effects, especially in children, of an intentionally increased fluoride exposure. As regards being well-informed, EU citizens (like the EFSA panels) are so poorly informed about this toxin and about the change of paradigm due to the results of diligent scientific research, that they are unable to take educated decisions on how to protect themselves. While e.g. in Ireland already more than a third of the children in fluoridated areas suffer from visible fluorosis, the more than 60 years old studies seemingly showing a benefit of fluoridation and on which the EFSA, the WHO and dentists’ organizations rely, have been refuted scientifically (even unopposed) now for more than 30 years. Even many of today’s papers still do not consider the effects to which these refutations call attention.

On August 23, 2007 the highly respected Albert W. Burgstahler, Prof Emeritus of Chemistry, University of Kansas (PhD Harvard 1953), editor of Fluoride (www.FluorideResearch.org), wrote to me: “Even now, despite no clear evidence of any real caries reduction from water fluoridation or even from topical fluorides, many researchers submitting research reports for publication in ‘Fluoride’ still adhere to the belief that there is such evidence. But then, when asked to cite it, they bring up outdated and disproved reports or else drop the claim.”

Here are only two of many independent checks confirming that the basis of fluoridation is invalid, a “50% caries reduction by fluoride” as has been promised by dentists would look much different:

(Data from Ziegelbecker R.&R.C., Fluoride1993,26(4)263-6)

The above diagrams only “repeat” the “father of fluoridation” method – but in contrast show a zero effect. If one would also account for the fluoride-caused tooth eruption delay – which is a toxic effect that produces large pretended “benefits” (differences in caries due to less and youn­ger teeth) but is still ignored in probably all “scientific” papers which recommend fluoridation – the above data, like many other studies, would indicate even less resistant teeth at higher fluoride intake = inverted benefits = harm which occurs additionally to fluorosis and to many other observed or possible side effects, already at the “recommended” intake level and from any form of lifelong fluori­dation (water, tablets, salt, nutri­tion). There are many more completely independent checks and proofs for the scientifical untena­bility of the foundations of fluoridation, as Bill Osmunson’s Fig.1 in http://www.fluorideresearch.org/404/files/FJ2007_v40_n4_p214-221.pdf which suggests a zero effect of water fluoridation in the USA or John Colquhoun’s diagram showing a decline of caries during decades without any indication of efficacy of fluoridation in New Zealand (Fluoride 1993:26(2)125-34), some of them having been sent to the DG SANCO during its calls for information in spring 2009.

Your predecessor in the DG SANCO placed undue reliance on fluoride opinions by EFSA experts, even though these opinions are scientifical­ly invalid, as well as on the current SCHER procedure.

However, there are some very important facts demanding your personal engagement in this highly important issue:

1. Even after EFSA’s director had been extensively informed by email on Feb. 13/14, 2006 by my late father http://www.fluorideresearch.org/423/files/FJ2009_v42_n3_p162-166.pdf , an Austrian expert on fluoridation, about the fact that the EFSA relies on studies which have been refuted for more than 30 years, the EFSA panels act as if they do not have any knowledge of these developments. EFSA panels continued producing scientifically untenable opinions on fluoride and inadmissibly “declaring” fluorides as “nutrients” (a recent example was in November 2008 when EFSA approved sodium monofluorophosphate (‘MFP’) as a food supplement, at direct odds with the EU Cosmetics Directive on fluoride toothpastes that requires they carry a warning to children under 6 years to minimize swallowing toothpaste containing MFP, and in a way that the leading toxicologist and long-serving expert adviser to the Europe­an Com­mis­sion, Prof Vyvyan Howard, was moved to question why EFSA chose to ignore the risk of fluo­ride exposure to the foetus and to growth and development – http://www.anhcampaign.org/files/090123-Commentary-Prof-Vyvyan-Howard-EFSA-SMP-opinion.pdf).

2. If scientific methods are to be correctly applied now,

a) EFSA panels would have to correct=overthrow their own earlier opinions, and

b) the SCHER must not rely (again) on them.

Both requirements are not only not provided, but even impeded by the method selected by the former EU commission: To the contrary, the text “While no one doubts the beneficial effects of fluoride…” in SCHER’s preli­mi­nary working mandate was issued at a time when serious doubts were available to the EFSA and therefore also to the DG SANCO, and the

actual working mandate contains a close coopera­tion of SCHER with EFSA of which people will be further dismayed due to the questionable competence of the EFSA concerning fluorides.

3. Another major cause for concern is the involvement of Professor Ursula Ackermann-Liebrich. Being an opponent to my father in 1999 in a fluoridation hea­­ring on Basle (see http://www.sso.ch/doc/doc_download.cfm?uuid=882FA737D9D9424C46408F384F86C9C0 p. 544 bottom), as a consequence of which she was also responsible for the senseless prolonging of Basle’s water fluoridation (which was finally stopped in 2003 because the promoters could not provide a proof for its efficacy), she is now – as a member of the SCHER and despite her declaration of a conflict of interests – “deciding in her own case”.

When in 2009 your predecessor called for information on fluoride and fluoridation chemicals for risk-assessment by the Scientific Committee on Health and Environmental Risks (SCHER), she was clearly not familiar with the battle against fluoridation in Germany, Austria and Switzerland since the 1970s. All readers of the book by Dr.med M.O. Bruker and Rudolf Ziegelbecker (my late father), know that the precondition and main reason for stopping fluoridation in continental Europe was its inefficacy against dental caries, accompanied by taking account of its actual and possible side-effects, which fact is well documented in this book.

I therefore enclose 2 copies of the book “Vorsicht Fluor” for your and your authority’s use.

It also covers efficient methods of reducing dental caries (pp. 15-17 and 321-323), the untenable scientific basis of fluoridation (e.g. pp. 332-348), the elimination of fluoridation in Europe (pp.398-405) and manipulation of information (pp. 422 ++).

While in true science the remarkable fact that the “caries flood” which had been predicted by fluoridation promoters in case of ending the numerous fluoridations – which indeed took place in many European countries since the 1970s – has never occurred after such stops (see Fluoride 1998; 31(3)171-4 in http://www.fluorideresearch.org/313/files/FJ1998_v31_n3_p129-174andS1-S34.pdf and pp. 368/369 and 404/405 of the book “Vorsicht Fluor”) would have completely refuted the hypothesis of the “benefit of fluoridation” by every single one of these cases, such important findings against fluoridation are simply ignored or suppressed from getting to the relevant researchers and authorities which are supplied instead with “selected” information in a complete departure from responsible science, even up to this day:

For example Fluoride, the open-access, quarterly scientific journal of the International Society for Fluoride Research (ISFR), despite all efforts, has never been available on Medline, the database most used by medical researchers (see the Editorial Report in http://www.fluorideresearch.org/424/files/FJ2009_v42_n4_p256-259.pdf), which fact results in some editors still publishing erroneous claims about fluoridation (which then are available via Medline!) simply because the scientific evidence has been hidden in this way.

Dear Mr Dalli, if consumers and especially children are truly to be your top priority, please use your very best efforts to rectify the greatest dental health policy error of recent decades, fluoridation. Only by your early personal action, by completely stopping fluoridation across the whole Euro­pean Union and putting this issue on a scientific basis again (which includes full incorporation also of the refutations of the papers which have led to fluoridation into the scientific discussion, and full publication also of contrary results) plus information of the con­­sumers and revision of EFSA’s earlier scientific opinions including a lowering of the Upper Tole­ra­ble Intake Level for fluoride can consumers and children in the European Union be adequately protected.

Given the widespread public concern about this matter, I am sending this as an Open Letter.

A study on the safety of fluoride in public drinking supplies will not be available until 2012 – more than five years after Green Party leader John Gormley promised to outlaw the chemical if elected to government. It is already nearly three years since the study was promised in the Programme for Government. But the examination of fluoride’s safety in drinking water will not even begin until this summer. Fluoride has been added to public water supplies for decades to protect teth by preventing cavities. But some researchers have concerns about its impact on human health. Mr Gormley campaigned strongly against fluoride before the election. He promised in March 2007 to ban fluoride from water supplies if he was electd to Government. It was subsequently agreed in the Programme for Government between Fiann Fáil and the Greens that a study would be undertaken on its safety. Health Minister Mary Harney confirmed yesterday that the Health Service Executive (HSE) will use a new monitoring programme to collect information regarding the total exposure in the population to fluoride.

The monitoring will begin in July and no details were available last night as to how it will work. But the results will not be available for another two years. As Green Party spokesman on health, John Gormley led a campaign against fluoridation. He maintained that countries throughout Europe which do not fluoridate have better dental health than Ireland. The Department of Health has defended the use of fluoride in drinking water and said there is no evidence to indicate it is not safe. A spokesman for Mr Gormley said he believes the study, when it is completed, will be comprehensive and he “awaits its results”.

Eilish O’Regan13/02/2010

Followed by letter of 19th February 2010 in Irish Independent below. Act on fluoride study now Friday February 19 2010

Why wait another three years before John Gormley’s fluoride safety study is ready (Irish Independent, February 13) when he, like the rest of Europe, has already found fluoridation to be both unsafe and ineffective?

It took him years of researching the international evidence (because no independent studies have ever been done here), and he brought many outside experts to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children, before he produced in late 2006 a report that won the approval of many committee members. However, for political reasons, it was blocked by the usual built-in Fianna Fail/PD committee majority. Fortunately, www.fluoridereports.com has made it available to the public on the internet so people can read its main conclusion. Fluoride in drinking water is not safe for bottle-fed babies and fluoridation should therefore stop. Since we have the lowest level of breast feeding in all of Europe at 40pc this advice was, and still is, very relevant to tens of thousands of parents.

And, as if to highlight how urgent the issue remains, last December both the American Dental Association and the US Centres for Disease Control re-issued their original advice that parents should not make up formula with fluoridated tap water because of the risk of dental fluorosis.

Our Health Minister, however, securely back in the Fianna Fail fold, recently issued a progress report on fluoride which described the permanent and untreatable disfigurement that is obvious dental fluorosis as “a cosmetic condition but not a health problem”. With John Gormley’s 2006 fluoridation report confirming that more and more Irish teenagers are now affected by this irreversible condition, a continuing cover-up of yet another health system failure is totally unacceptable.

Robert Pocock
DUBLIN 2

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/letters/act-on-fluoride-study-now-2070436.html

Monday, January 25, 2010

THE recent hardship caused by burst water pipes highlighted the precarious condition of our water supply network. That approximately 40% of all water in Ireland is lost in leakage was widely publicised in recent weeks when so many pipes failed in the freeze. Though many people were previously unaware of the dire condition of the national network of water pipes, the rate of leakage – the highest in the EU – has been criticised by Brussels for some time. The excuse we are being given for this level of leakage is that the pipes are old, but this is not the whole story.

We are not unique among our EU neighbours in having old piping. What makes us unique is that we are the only country that as a matter of national policy pours a toxic industrial waste, hexa fluorisilic acid (fluoride), into our water. This acid is very severe and corrodes the pipes and joints over time. Even more is the damage it does to our health: infertility, bone diseases, cancer, thyroid disease, mental illness, reduced IQ in babies, heart disease, etc.

Though we are told that water is fluoridated to prevent dental cavities, the health authorities admit more than 40% of Irish teenagers now suffer from dental fluorosis, which is permanent damage to tooth enamel from too much fluoride. Northern Ireland does not fluoridate its water. The level of cavities among its population is the same as ours. However, dental fluorosis is not as significant a problem among Northern teenagers as it is here.

Most toothpaste contains calcium or sodium fluoride. This is less harmful than the type of fluoride put in drinking water. However, because even this fluoride is dangerous, the toothpaste packaging carries warnings it is not to be used by young children or be swallowed.

Some toothpaste warnings even advise the user to go to a doctor or a poison control centre if he or she swallows even a pea-size quantity.

Despite this known danger, the Government insists on having us swallow an even more dangerous form of fluoride.

Now that we will be asked to pay for the water we use in our homes, I suggest we insist the supply is reliable and, more importantly, safe and healthy for our children and ourselves. I would also suggest people educate themselves about fluoride … the medical research, as well as many other interesting aspects of water fluoridation, is available on the internet.

Kathy Sinnott
‘St Joseph’
Ballinabearna
Ballinhassig
Co Cork

Read more: http://www.irishexaminer.ie/opinion/letters/if-fluoride-hastens-water-pipe-corrosion-what-is-it-doing-to-our-childrens-health-110515.html#ixzz0ddSPXvW8

090609_Water Fluoridation in the EU 1999-2009

The formal dialogue session on Risk Assessment between stakeholders and the EU’s scientific committees on Nov 20th in Brussels heard criticism of the Commission, as the risk manager, for failing to protect children from fluoride risks. Only in Ireland and parts of the UK are fluoridation chemicals allowed in drinking water, where there is now an epidemic of dental fluorosis in children.“ It’s a sad day for European science” said VOICE’s campaigner against fluoridation, Robert Pocock, when the EU’s Scientific Committee on the Environment and Health(SCHER) is accused of being unqualified for its task. Yet the 20,000 member International Society of Doctors for Environment (ISDE) made just such a claim, when the Commission asked SCHER for scientific risk assessment of fluoridation chemicals.

ISDE declared that since fluoride chemicals act pharmacologically, SCHER’s lack of expertise in assessing medicinal substances is a serious impediment. In light of this major defect, the VOICE spokesman told the meeting, SCHER members should re-consider their role in this whole affair. Pocock also said that it was six long years since the 2003 EU Drinking Water Seminar in Brussels, that the World Health Organisation in Geneva had promised within four months a similar risk assessment of the fluorosilicic acid in Irish drinking water, before he added “We are still awaiting it”.

Another yellow card was shown to the Commission for failing to abide by its own rules requiring Rapid Advice when an urgent public health threat demands it. With some sixty children in Ireland each month (plus another 120 in the UK) getting moderate or severe dental fluorosis, there is ample reason for the Commission to invoke Rapid Advice in order to protect childen from this unnecessary risk. The Scientific Committee on New and Emerging Health Risks(SCENIHR) reported how it had engaged other EU agencies including the European Medicines Evaluation Agency(EMEA) in assessing antimicrobial risk, an initiative fully endorsed by the Commission.

Yet when faced with the official Irish evidence of an epidemic of dental fluorosis in children in Ireland (and pro rata in the UK) caused by an unlicensed medicinal substance in these two member states, the Commission refuses to engage with EMEA, surely cause for another yellow card? VOICE has already called for the CEO of EMEA to stand aside for this blatant failure to enforce pharmacovigilance in Ireland and the UK, one possible explanation for EMEA’s inaction being that its CEO Mr Pat O’Mahony is also CEO of the Irish Medicines Board. As the risk manager and medicines regulator within the Commission, EMEA should have enforced the relevant directive years ago.

Instead the Commission has passed the buck to an EU scientific committee unqualified for the task. The clear losers in this regulatory failure are at-risk children and the credibility of EU science.

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http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_risk/ev_20091120_en.htm