Fluoride - no thank you!
CategoriesBradford (UK) - A motion to say "no" to fluoridation of Bradford's water supply was passed by a large majority on July 1, 2003.
The Motion was presented to the Lord Mayor and Members of Bradford Council (UK) by Councillor Martin Love of the Green Party. It passed by a large majority and no amendments were brought, showing the full support of Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Greens and most of the Labour Party councillors.
Fluoride however is still very much part of our daily dose of toxins. The European Union lists fluoride as an allowed "nutrient source" in the text of its Food Supplements Directive, which is to be converted into national law in all member states by the end of this month. Belgium is a notable exception. The country has prohibited the use of fluoride in all foods including chewing gums, in 2002.
The industrial fluoridation lobby with the help of largely uninformed dentists' associations world wide is currently renewing its push to recover lost fluoridation territory. After most European countries stopped fluodidating their water supply in the 60s and 70s, the British government is proposing now to exempt water companies from liability when fluoridating water. Turin in northern Italy is considering adding fluoride to its water and so are some communities in California and Canada.
Fluoride is a neurotoxin and sustained intake can cause changes in behaviour. The substance has been linked with increased incidence of cancer and a host of other adverse health effects have been documented. Fluoride is contained in many pharmaceutical drugs and may be at least partially responsible for their often deadly side effects.
Maybe not surprisingly, this poison is also contained in many pesticides liberally distributed in the environment, from where it re-enters the food chain.
The motion of Councillor Martin Love of Bradford gives an excellent overview and what's more - it was successful! Legislators, take note!
FLUORIDE MOTION - JULY 1st 2003
Lord Mayor,It seems that every few years the subject of fluoridation of drinking water crops up with successive governments seemingly intent on foisting this dangerous and unwanted substance on an unwilling people.
Thankfully Bradford Council has consistently opposed the principle of fluoridation, in votes in 1988 and 1992, which some of you may remember, and with this motion today we seek to reaffirm that position and send a message to the government - that mass involuntary medication is unethical and a gross infringement of our civil liberties. The motion is similar to others being put forward for debate in Local Authorities up and down the country over the next few months in an attempt to let the government know how the people who drink the stuff feel about having their water tampered with.
We oppose fluoridation for three basic reasons:
Its supposed benefits are based on unsound medical science
It is harmful to humans, animals, and the environment
It defies all common medical ethics
So what exactly is it?
The fluoride added to water supplies is HEXAFLUOROSILICIC ACID, a real mouthful for anyone even when you have spent the weekend practising it, but not something you would want to get a mouthful of. It is a toxic and corrosive industrial waste by-product derived from the scrubbings of the factory chimneys of the super-phosphate fertiliser industry. Fluorides are medically categorised as protoplasmic poisons and they are used in commercial rat poisons. It is more toxic than lead and only marginally less poisonous than arsenic, and we all know about the efforts to remove lead from drinking water supplies over the last century. Worse still, the hexafluorosilicic acid used is not a pure compound of medical quality but is itself contaminated with other poisons such as arsenic and cancer-causing heavy metals like cadmium and even mercury. The US Environmental Protection Agency has recently admitted that it doesn't fully understand what happens to fluoride when it is added to drinking water.
The theory put forward by the British Fluoridation Society (which incidentally is financed by the taxpayer to the tune of over £100,000 per year) is that fluoride reduces tooth decay in under-12s, but recent large-scale studies in the USA, Canada and New Zealand show this to be an inaccurate claim. Even in the UK, studies have shown there is no difference in incidence of decayed, missing or filled teeth between fluoridated Gateshead, and socially-comparable, and unfluoridated Liverpool.
The National Pure Water Association has repeatedly asked the UK Department of Health to cite one scientific or laboratory study from anywhere in the world which proves that fluoridation reduces tooth decay in humans. They have failed to do so. The fact is that there is not a single scientific or laboratory study from anywhere in the world which proves that fluoridation reduces tooth decay in humans. There are, however, hundreds of published scientific papers which show that water fluoridation is dangerous to human, animal, plant and aquatic life, which is no surprise considering the relative toxicity levels of the substance.
That list of dangers to humans reads like a medical dictionary such are the effects noted in scientific papers from around the world. These include collagen disruption leading to breakdown of collagen in bone, tendon, muscle, skin, cartilage, lungs, kidney and trachea, and the inhibition of antibody formation in the blood and confusion of the immune system.
Fluoride kills red blood cells and damages gastric mucosa resulting in the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome. It is implicated in genetic disorders, low IQ levels in children, pre-senile dementia and Alzheimer's disease, premature ageing and thyroid disorders due to its disruption of iodine in the body. Fluorides have also been used as drugs for modifying human behaviour and moods.
It has also been argued that fluoride increases cancer rates. In a recent study it was found that, pro-rata, 40% more people contracted bone cancer in the Republic of Ireland, which is fluoridated, compared with non-fluoridated but otherwise similar Northern Ireland.
And that's just what it does to humans.
Artificial water fluoridation is pollution. More than 99.5% of fluoride added to drinking water ends up going down the drain. Even in the case of a small country like Ireland, this amounts to 2000 gallons of hexafluorosilicic acid being released into the environment every day, while the National Pure Water Association in Britain estimates that if the government were allowed to fluoridate 85% of UK water supplies, this would lead to an astonishing 45-50,000 tonnes of the stuff being poured into our environment every year. The dumping of such a large amount of toxic waste would be a serious threat to our rivers and plant and aquatic life. Water fluoridation also threatens the organic food industry as any crops irrigated with fluoridated water would be likely to fail the Soil Association's tests.
Elsewhere in the world, opinion has been turning against fluoridation for years. Japan, Germany, Sweden, Russia, Holland and Finland have all had mass fluoridation schemes and stopped them. France has never allowed it, and Belgium have gone a step further and banned the sale of fluoride tablets and chewing gum. Between 1990 and 2000, no less than 77 US and Canadian cities either rejected fluoridation or abandoned existing schemes, some after several decades of operation. In the United States since 1997 fluoridated toothpaste has carried a health warning in case of swallowing more than the amount needed for brushing.
And yet, despite all this, our government knows better.
If you are convinced of the benefits of fluoride, (which only exist until the age of 12 in any case) you can of course buy a fluoridated toothpaste. It is readily available and costs no more than fluoride-free toothpaste. You have the right to make that choice. But if the pro-fluoridation lobby gets its way, you will have no choice but to swallow fluoride repeatedly every day. You will always have to consume a cumulative poison every time you drink a glass of water or a cup of tea. There is no freedom to choose because you simply can't opt out.
It is the most basic of human rights that people should have control over their own bodies and clean water is one of life's most essential needs. Even if the claims of the fluoridators could be upheld, and the dangers I have described earlier were not real, I would still oppose this policy. This isn't even a matter of democracy or of majority opinion - it's a matter of personal choice and just one person being given this medication against their will is one too many.
We do not deny that there is a problem with dental standards in this country, but the mass medication of the entire population will do nothing to solve that problem. Tooth decay, whether in adults or children is due to poor dental hygiene and excessive consumption of refined sugar products, and fluoridation will not stop either of those.
Instead we need better education of both children and adults about dental health and the need for a healthy diet with a lower individual and national consumption of sugar. We would also call for a return to the days of free dental inspections for all.
I urge you to support this motion and support the health and human rights of the people we represent.
Let me leave you with a thought.
What action do you think would be taken against a GP who wrote a prescription for a patient he had never met or examined and whose medical history he did not know, and on that prescription advised no maximum dosage nor duration of course, just because some people say this drug might help reduce tooth decay in children?
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