NEWS
13th June 2024
The Public Consultation on Water Fluoridation for the North-East of England.
The consultation period has been extended to now end on 31st July 2024.
The Judge's decision on the fluoride trial in the USA will appear on the Home Page during 2024.
13th May 2024
Three meetings of Local Authorities' Health Boards have taken place recently in Northumberland and Durham City. At two of these meeting, our Durham Against Fluoridation, Fluoride Free Alliance UK and the North-East Freedom Fighters have asked searching questions of the Boards on the topic of WF for the North-East.
Spurred on by their Directors of Public Health, Councillors have been tight-lipped. It could be that Councillors are not used to being challenged in their own parlours. No matter, the message has come across - those opposed to WF are not going to be downcast, no matter what the Boards recommend to the DHSC. Yes - their DPHs are urging them to respond positively to the Public Consultation. Aren't there enough responses already to tip the balance in their favour? We can but hope.
EDITORIAL, 12th May 2024
The Public Consultation (PC) for the North-East of England began on 25th March and will now end on 31st July 2024 following a solicitor's letter to the DHSC in which it was pointed out that there a couple of irregularities in the Consultation process.
The Consultation involves 1.6 million people who ought to participate in the Consultation but only if they knew about it. It was very poorly advertised in one regional on-line paper - the Northern Echo - on 25th March, and appeared on-line for 5 hours that evening. The next day it was archived under a different title. It was truly "The Case of the Vanished Public Consultation".
Residents who fortuitously learn abut the Consultation can respond to the PC up until the 31st July. However, the DHSC has been kind to those who approve of WF: they were contacted by Email - not individually, but via their membership secretaries. It seems as though most of the external stakeholders are pro-fluoridation.
Despite existing as a very large group, residents have seemingly been cold-shouldered out of the way as being of no consequence.
There is an evil genius in the DHSC at work because to avoid being accused of stealth-bombing, the Daily Telegraph published a set of 4 articles on WF in the second week of February, and the Mail OnLine ran a feature at about the same time - far enough away from the 25th March to allow readers to forget all about the possibility of there being a PC. People throughout England ought to have been told on 25th March that the PC had started. However, the Daily Telegraph and Mail On-Line then seem to have developed amnesia.
The timing was perfect (for the DHSC) - the Monday before the Easter Hols when families were frantically getting ready to prepare for their Easter Hols. No time to do anything about responding to a PC even if they knew anything about the issue. On their return, the archived on-line article would not be in the forefront of their minds unless they were invested in following up the opportunity to respond. And the PC spans two May Bank Holidays as well as Easter. This means a further reduction in possible responses due to holidays.
One other item of interest: to read the Daily Telegraph articles, you either have to buy a newspaper or pay-to-view the on-line versions. Was this a subtle method of reducing the possibility of the predicted PC travelling to all corners of the Kingdom?
How does one contact 1.6 million people to warn them about their fate? It has been really difficult to wake up the affected people of the North-East of England and so, they will remain slumbering, and it could appear that the evil genius is going to get away with it. It is clearly a short-sighted evil genius because the future generation is going to have reduced intelligence with many requiring special education which is costly.
Which brings me neatly to the US Court Case - "Fluoride is on Trial" for reducing children's IQ. We eagerly look forward to the denouement - the verdict - because only then can sanity be restored when this unconscionable practice falls apart.
In an earlier item, we tempted fate by predicting the publication of yet another study which showed that the aspirational "reduction in oral health inequalities across social groups was just that - aspirational. Are here it is: LOTUS. A largescale analysis of adult oral health which has found no reduction in oral health inequalities across social groups.
That's four such conclusions since 2000. Now who is going to tell the Secretary of State that Public Health practitioners have been spinning her a yarn?
These are the citations for all four studies:
The York Review (2000) and the Cochrane Collaboration (2015) were two systematic reviews which found no reduction in oral health inequalities.
McDonagh et. al. (2000). A Systematic Review of Water Fluoridation. NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination, University of York, ISBN 1 900640 16 3
Iheozor-Ejiofor et. al. (18th June 2015). Water Fluoridation to Prevent Tooth Decay. Primary Review Group, Oral Health Group, Cochrane Collaboration http://www.cochrane.org/CD010856/ORAL_water-fluoridation-prevent-tooth-decay
CATFISH and LOTUS were financed by the UK Government which is trying desperately to ignore their conclusions.
The CATFISH researchers could find no evidence either. “In both cohorts, we could find no strong evidence that WF reduces dental health inequalities.” In the Conclusions of Goodwin M, R. Emsley and R, Kelly et al. (2022). Evaluation of water fluoridation scheme in Cumbria: the CATFISH prospective longitudinal cohort study. Southampton (UK): National Institute for Health and Care Research; 2022 Nov. Public Health Research, No. 10.11. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK586983/ .
The LOTUS researchers could also find no evidence: “The research team found no compelling evidence that water fluoridation reduced social inequalities in dental health, and the numbers of missing teeth between the groups were the same.”. Moore, D. et. al. (2024) . The LOTUS Study: Fluoridation for Adults. https://sites.manchester.ac.uk/lotus/#results
12th January 2023
At the Federal Court Case in California today the Judge ordered that the final version of the National Toxicology Program's Review on fluoride and reduced intelligence be released to the Plaintiffs in the next few months and certainly by 11th April when the next hearing will take place. Everything hinges on this Review. It has been sent to the American Dental Association (pro-fluoridation) for review but has not been seen by the Plaintiffs. US Government agencies are hard-peddling on its release to the public because, we believe, the conclusions of the Review state that fluoride is a "known" developmental neurotoxin. Once that information is published, the Court can decide on its verdict. So we have to wait patiently for a few more months. In the meantime, the UK Government is nowhere up to speed (well, at least publicly, that is). There has been no move to reduce the target concentration of fluoride from 1mg to 0.7 mg F/litre to bring us into line with the Republic of Ireland and the USA, even though we are on the same latitude and there has been no hint from the DHSC that they are aware of the 76 studies which show a correlation between over-exposure to fluoride and reduced intelligence.
NEWS
16th December 2022
In the USA, an unethical piece of research is underway. Babies aged from 3 months to 4 years are being given bottles of fluoridated water to see whether the fluoride prevents cavities. The community involved in the research is not fluoridated and the parents of the children are not being told of the risks to their children's intelligence. We've borrowed the Press Release which explains the situation more fully.
14th November 2022
The CATFISH project has finally been published after much delay. The research was sponsored by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) via the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and was courtesy of a team of dental researchers led by the Dental Division at the University of Manchester.
The research costs were worth it from our point of view: the team could not find any evidence that WF reduces oral health inequalities across social groups. So much for levelling up! This was the third such finding since 2000 (The York Review) and 2015 (The Cochrane Collaboration). Now will anyone be brave enough to tell the DHSC about this or are we going to wait for yet another study to tell us the same thing. When it comes to believing research results, the rule is the more the better, but really?! Surely three similar results over 22 years is convincing enough, isn't it? Or do we have to go to the ridiculous extremes of identifying 76 studies on reduced intelligence correlated with over-exposure to fluoride in the womb and in baby formula before we are finally convinced that fluoride is "doing us in"?
But wait, there are 76 such studies. Isn't it time for the Government and DHSC to listen?
28th April 2022
With seemingly indecent haste, several bills were placed in front of Her Majesty today for Royal Assent. Among them was the Health and Care Bill 2022 which contains the two vexatious clauses designed to allow the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (SoS DHSC, Sajid Javid) to take responsibility for all new proposals to fluoridate an area/city in England. Thus, the legal belt is to be tightened further around our waists.
The next steps will be to enact the Commencement Regulations. Since the Government is determined to "get the job done" we envisage that they have already been written. Before or after publication, the DHSC will undertake an Impact Assessment as promised by Earl Howe in the House of Lords, followed by the selection of an outside contractor to run the Public Consultation in an area selected for the first WF Public Consultation since 2009. Residents will be given 3 months to respond, after which, regardless of the results of the Consultation, the SoS will undoubtedly declare that the public are in favour (yes it really will be that blatant) and an order given to the hapless water company to go out to tender for the dosing equipment. Sheffield, Luton and possibly the Isle of Weight are firmly in the sights of the Civil Servants in the OHID Department responsible for WF programmes, fluoride health monitoring reports and oral health surveys.
The Conservative Government is undeniably in favour of adding fluoride to drinking water. It is felt that this bias stems from the UK's relationship with the USA: the "special relationship" which has ensured that where the USA goes, the UK is sure to follow. Water Fluoridation was initially seen as a way of disposing of industrial hazardous waste the cheap way but was quickly a diversions tactic which gave the US nuclear bomb-making process a safe reputation as well as taking attention away from the polluting nature of hydrogen fluoride emissions. There is no need to uphold this reputation any longer because everyone knows how dangerous it is to live near sources of radiation and toxic pollutants. However, all Governments who have signed up to the myth that fluoride is safe and effective continue to believe that they are doing no harm! "Tell a lie often enough ..... " But , is the push to now fluoridate England wholly innocent?
Today, we've added the film "Poison on Tap" to the Resources > Video section. This is an excellent "primer" which introduces the viewer to the vested interests of the movers and shakers in this issue.
Can there be any doubt after watching the video, that swallowing fluoride is the biggest political and medical con ever perpetrated on human kind?
March 2022
Despite our best efforts, the Parliamentary Petition peaked at 44,853 signatures on 28th March 2022. So, we won't get our "day in court" (i.e. a debate in the House of Commons) - well, at least not this spring anyway. Thank you to all our supporters and to persistent colleagues in Derbyshire who tirelessly posted out thousands of dual-purpose postcards to civil society groups, to veggie box distributors and to alternative health magazines. From our point of view, we succeeded in spreading the word about this iniquitous public health blunder and partially overcame the national and regional media blackout. We also succeeded in reaching MPs.
It appears that the two vexatious clauses in the Health and Care Bill will be enacted. A small crumb of comfort is that there might be an environmental and health impact assessment performed before any new areas are proposed for Water Fluoridation (WF). it also appears that the DHSC is going to perform a Public Consultation to work out how to conduct future Public Consultations on WF! That should be fun.
09/12/21
It seems that the s**t has hit the fan. Breaking news: Vitamin D is essential for the strengthening of teeth from decay. The American Dental Association has deliberately hidden this fact for many years and has instead sponsored the more expensive fluoride dental preparations (and consequently fluoridated water). Here is the Press Release which has been brought to us by our colleagues in the USA (NYSCOF):
NYSCOF News Release sent via PRNewswire
How Organized Dentistry Began Treating Vitamin D Deficiency with Fluoride, Researcher Reveals
New York – December 2021 -- American Dental Association (ADA) internal documents reveal how it influenced the world to ignore a preponderance of evidence proving vitamin D can prevent tooth decay in order to promote nonessential but profitable fluoride, reports Philippe P. Hujoel, PhD, DDS, Professor, Oral Health Sciences, School of Dentistry, University of Washington (Nutrients December 2021), reports the New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation, Inc. (NYSCOF).
Hujoel writes, “The ADA was a world‐leading organization and its governing bodies worked through political channels to make fluoride a global standard of care for a disease which at the time was viewed as an indicator of vitamin D deficiencies.” The ADA scientific council endorsed vitamin D for 15 years but reversed its decision in 1989.
The evidence suggests that professional organizations of clinical specialists, such as the ADA, have the power to create standards of care which ignore key evidence and consequently can harm public health, reports Hujoel.
Attorney Paul Beeber, NYSCOF President says, “It seems the rich and powerful ADA uses legislators and the media for its own political and financial viability to misinform the public. Artificial fluoridation is based on politics and deception, not science. It must end.”
Vitamin D deficiency, now common in US adults and children, is also more prevalent in the same groups suffering the most tooth decay.
Many current studies link vitamin D deficiency to more cavities.
After 77 years of water fluoridation, intending to dramatically reduce tooth decay, 70% of US children are fluoride-overdosed, afflicted with dental fluorosis (discolored teeth). Yet, tooth decay is epidemic. Like all drugs, fluoride has adverse side effects.
Vitamin D, an essential nutrient, is free via sunlight exposure; fluoride is a huge money maker.
ADA’s Seal of Approval is paid for (CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta).
“ADA governing bodies had several channels of influence to put fluoride experts on authoritative writing panels who globalized the now conventional wisdom of ignoring and dismissing the evidence of the role of nutritional deficiencies in dental disease etiology,” writes Hujoel.
“It did not matter that the professional organization had a self-evident conflict of interest; topical fluoride applications in dental offices were revenue-generating procedures, vitamin D prescriptions were not,” writes Hujoel.
The powerful politics of the ADA is well documented as explained here and here and here.
Contact: Paul Beeber 516-433-8882 nyscof@aol.com http://fluoridealert.org
SOURCE:
New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation, Inc. (NYSCOF)
PO Box 263
Old Bethpage, NY 11804
07/12/21
The 2nd reading if the Health and Care Bill 2021 took place during the afternoon and evening of 7th December in the House of Lords. Five Lords spoke against Clauses 147 and 148 (Water Fluoridation clauses). The House will now go to the Committee stage where all the clauses will be examined. We've uploaded the speech by Lord Reay to the main Resources Main Page, item 2, which succinctly explains the objections to Water Fluoridation.
11/10/21
Our friend in the USA, Carol Kopf, has had a Rapid Response letter published in the BMJ.
https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2359/rr?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=63cf5fc7-45bc-40bd-a8e4-52f36f1c5889
10/10/21
The Parliament Petition has now reached 27,160 signatures (4pm on 13/10/21). Go to https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/597714 to sign and beware that the Gov's response to you may go into your Junk/Spam inbox.
09/10/21
Fluoride Free Alliance UK has a new string to its bow: a Telegram Chat Room which is proving very popular with more than 400 members.
08/10/21
There's a new kid on the block: www.stopfluoridation.org. It's a very welcome addition.
29/09/21
Parliamentary Petition against adding any more fluoride to drinking water. It has already surpassed 10,000 signatures and is romping away towards the 100,000 signature stage. Please go to https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/597714 and sign. Beware that the Gov's email asking you to confirm that you are who you say you are will probably go into your Junk Box.
28/09/21
Three British Scientists have issued a Press Release to UK journalists today which attempts to counteract the CMOs' article.
https://londonlovesbusiness.com/is-it-safe-to-drink-tap-water/
23/09/21
The four Chief Medical Officers for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have issued their intentions for fluoridating the drinking water of the Nation. The article, initially in the Mail On-Line is a particularly unbalanced piece of pseudo-journalism. It has attracted 1600 comments with most being against Water Fluoridation. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10021229/All-Britons-given-water-containing-fluoride-fight-tooth-decay-health-chiefs-rule.html#comments .
09/21
The Health and Care Bill has reached the Committee Stage in the House of Commons. The Public Bill Committee will examine the Bill line by line and will finish its deliberations at the end of October. Clauses 128 and 129 relate to Water Fluoridation and must not be allowed to become enacted. Writing a submission to the Committee and copied to your MP is positive action. Please go to Resources on this website and read the 1st item on that page if you wish to submit. We've devised a submission which everyone can send in. The Clauses will be examined mid-October and thereafter not revisited unless the House of Lords requests for them to be amended or deleted.
11/02/21
Government White Paper on NHS Reform. It includes proposals to remove Water Fluoridation from the control of local authorities and to return the policy and all activity on WF to the Department of Health and Social Care. Public Consultations will not be removed from the provisions but Central Government will become responsible for proposing WF programmes for an area and for controlling the Public Consultations. In effect, this means that there will not be a scrutiny process at Local Government level and the Dept of Health will move swiftly to announcing a Public Consultation thus giving communities less time to rally themselves to opposing WF. Our opposition will be vital if we are to attract opponents of WF. We can only hope that commonsense will prevail and that HM Government will come to understand that no community is going to take this lying down.
NEWS
16th December 2022
In the USA, an unethical piece of research is underway. Babies aged from 3 months to 4 years are being given bottles of fluoridated water to see whether the fluoride prevents cavities. The community involved in the research is not fluoridated and the parents of the children are not being told of the risks to their children's intelligence. We've borrowed the Press Release which explains the situation more fully.
24th November 2022
The CATFISH Project (West Cumbria) has finally been published and what a surprise! It is not the whitewash which we had been expecting. In fact, it is quietly damming of WF.
The researchers found that WF does not reduce oral health inequalities across social groups. This news will not be welcome news to ex-MP, Alan Johnson, who now has to swallow hard and admit that he has been wrong all along.
Moreover, the hoped-for reduction in dental decay in the fluoridated area was somewhat underwhelming. Finally, the researchers' conclusions relating to WF policy cast doubts on the wisdom of enforcing the WF programme on communities when there are other ways of tackling decay. The implications for policy can be read on pp. 90-1 by "Download Report .pdf" from https://www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk/phr/SHMX1584/#/full-report.
Several days have elapsed since publication and although three national newspapers picked up on the research, there has been no response from Professor John Newton of OHID, nor from Professor Chris Whitty, CMO for England. We look forward to reading their attempts to negate the research.
20th August 2022
The DHSC has recently closed a Public Consultation in which the public was asked their views on the rules governing future WF Public Consultations. The conclusion has been that local people and national organisations should be allowed to submit their views relating to proposals to fluoridate a local area but that individuals living outside the area proposed for WF should not. That's an acceptable compromise. Had national organisation been barred from submitting, that would have excluded the British Fluoridation Society and other organisations hell-bent on fluoridating us, But it also means that FFAUK can submit. We have really strong reasons against WF which the DHSC cannot ignore. Currently, those reasons are being committed to paper in readiness for" the big push". However, no-one who reads this news item should think that we are in favour of WF Public Consultations. It is completely unethical to ask a member of the public to agree to having their drinking water turned into a medicinal substance when neighbours who drink the same water object to the practice. This is hardly "social prescribing", a modality where individuals are encouraged to improve their health by offering them the means to do so voluntarily.
Immediately the Public Consultation ended, draft regulations were published. On 22nd July, they were presented to the House of Commons. The outcome is not known. If they passed through on the nod, they will be presented to the House of Lords. If they predictably gain upper house approval, the DHSC will request a water company to prepare a feasibility report. The only way in which we will be able to find out which water company and which area of England is to be targeted is if we are quick at submitting a Freedom of Information request. It looks as though we are about to have our work cut out for us!
For the entire White Paper, go to http://www.healthpolicyinsight.com/?q=node/1699
For Matt Hancock's "evidence" statement to the Select Committee on 16th March 2021, go to https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/63be5f8c-4159-4b85-9ec4-3ec4e8fe9828 and scroll foward using the curly arrow key to 11.43. James Davies MP received a scripted answer to his original question. The answer contained a few fibs. When he asked if it was the intention to roll out WF Nationwide, the chilling answer from Matt Hancock was "Yes".
Our submissions against the White Paper proposals on WF have finally appeared on the Select Committee's website. We were not invited to make oral representations to the Select Committee. In fact, there seems to have been very little deliberation in public of the topic if any at all. Once more the issue is being buried even though it will affect the human rights and the entire health of the Nation.
20/04/21
For the past week, local newspapers have carried the same story for some areas of England where it has been discovered that the dental health of 3-year-old chidren who were examined in nurseries in spring 2020 is of concern. Oral Health Surveys are a mirage: more often than not, the examined children's numbers are too small (that is less than 250) to be statistically significant and we are not allowed to ask which nurseries were visited. We assume that if the decay is particularly bad, then the dental examiners visited nurseries in a socially disadvantaged area. Take for example, the results for Bedford Borough. In Spring 2020, there were 2393 3-year-olds in the Borough. Just 122 were examined and 14 were found to have dental decay. Included in the 14 children were 5 who had baby bottle decay, a type of decay which is observed more in families in socially disadvantaged areas. No amount of fluoride could ever prevent this type of decay which is child neglect.
If these findings were recorded throughout Bedford, then we would be right to be worried. But it is unlikely that parents have been neglecting their children in the more affluent areas of the Borough. Should Bedford once again become fluoridated just because 122 children had tooth decay in 2020 with no proof of rampant decay in other parts of Bedford, this would be a grave injustice indeed.
We detect a certain strategy is being reeled out in order to persuade the general public that dental decay in children is now rife and that the only way to prevent it is to fluoridate the general population, even those with no natural teeth of their own!
Update, 22/06/21
The Select Committee examining the proposals in the DHSC White Paper has held its evidence sessions. The session on 16th March was almost exclusively to do with the main White Paper proposals relating to the NHS. Just a short section of two questions from Dr James Davies related to WF. The official transcript is in the public domain but for the visitor's convenience, it's reproduced here:
"Q158 Dr Davies: On a completely different topic, if and when the legislation is passed, what are your intentions with regard to rolling out fluoridation in water?
Matt Hancock: I will turn to Jason again to set out the details, but there are very clear public health advantages to the fluoridation of water. The power was devolved to local authorities as part of the 2012 reforms; however, because water courses do not respect local authority boundaries, and for all sorts of other reasons, very little progress was made. The vast majority of the public support fluoridation of water and it is very [very] good * for dental health. We should not be held back by the very small number of people who disagree, given that the clinical evidence is so strong. We are proposing to take responsibility back up to the national level where it more appropriately sits. Jason?
Jason Yiannikkou: I think you have covered it all pretty much, Secretary of State. I emphasise that it is an enabling power, so it gives flexibility, and there would be consultation and so on in the normal way
Q159 Dr Davies: Consultation, but the intention if possible is to roll it out nationwide.
Matt Hancock: Yes."
* Matt Hancock said "very very good" but the official transcript appears as "very good".
UKFFFA has written once to the Select Committee and twice to Matt Hancock since the date closed for submissions. In all three cases, replies were requested. Today is the 22nd June. No replies have been received.
Those opposed to WF and to the proposals in the White Paper made submissions to the Select Committee. None were called to give oral evidence. In the final report of the Select Committee to the DHSC, most of the submissions' authors were listed in a footnote. but the names of a practising pharmacist and two professors were omitted.
Comment: More and more, we detect a strategy to air-brush us out, to give us no validity and to never record, in detail, the reasons why we object to WF. Is this a universal tactic practised by those in power who support WF? We believe it is. Our exact reasons for objecting using the words and phrases we use are never repeated. Instead we are labelled as a vociferous minority and infuenced by conspirary theories, as if such theories are disreputable and not to be entertained by lowly members of the public. However, it has been said that those who entertain conspirary theories are capable of critical thought. In other words, we are not sheeple. We really do object to being accused of knee-jerk reactions, accused of forming an opinion based on thin air, accused of being hare-brained and accused of being less discerning than MPs such as Sir Paul Beresford of the British Fluoridation Society. ** Our capacity for research and for identifying the truth makes us more discerning than this MP who has never taken the trouble to read-up on the opposite point-of-view and who has an out-of-control disregard for the beliefs of his fellow man.
** Read his deplorable outburst in Hansard: Volume 696, 25th May 2021, Westminster Hall Debate on Oral Health and Dentistry
https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2021-05-25/debates/A19097A3-1704-4109-9A39-31B826CF28D3/OralHealthAndDentistryEngland.
Another recent example from Cumbria County Council (CCC) appears in a document on their website which refers to the reasons why the WF issue is to be scrutinised this summer. CCC's reasons relate to the safety and efficacy of WF which the "Task and Finish" group will examine but nowhere can it be seen that our main reason for asking for a scrutiny is based on a legal issue: the current WF contracts for two Water Treatment Works (WTWs) will become varied with their closure followed by the opening of a new WTW. The contractual variances are numerous and have led us to believe, having examined current WF legislation and the infamous "Toolkit," that a Public Consultation has to be initiated before fluoridated water begins to flow from the new WTW. By not listing the primary objection and by not naming the two groups involved who are in opposition to WF, our influence is diminished from the get-go.
So, let's put the record straight: Fluoride Free Cumbria and UKFFFA have told CCC that the new WTW cannot fluoridate primarily because of contractual difficulties. Yes - we have written a long report which lists and dicusses other reasons why WF is bad practice but our main reason is the fact that the current contracts to fluoridate will, when the new WTW opens next year, be null and void. The new WTW has been constructed because of DEFRA withdrawing the licence to extract water from Ennerdale Water and not because of technical problems with the existing fluoridation equipment at the two WTWs which are due to close. Thus, WF cannot continue at the new WTW. CCC's Scrutiny process will begin on 25th June and will last until October 2021.
25th August 2021
Despite the many submissions to the Select Committee by those opposed to WF, the Select Committee made some mild comments to the DHSC at the end of its deliberations on the Health and Care Bill. We expected Matt Hancock to respond to the Select Committee but if he did so, we are not privy to the content of any response. The next bit of news is interesting: Matt Hancock resigns from his job as Secretary of State on 27th June and is replaced by Sajid Javid. No change in policy has been announced and despite the fact that WF was not included in the 2019 Conservative Partry manifesto, the Bill containing the clauses relating to WF has now been passed to the Public Bill Committee (aka The Committee Stage) having passed through the 1st and 2nd readings of the Bill in the House of Commons.
Clauses 128 and 129 deal with the Government's proposals to change current WF legislation:
Clause 128 seeks to transfer responsibility for new WF proposals, consultations and decisions to the SoS for DHSC.
Clause 129 seeks to give the SoS the power to write new WF contracts for existing WF programmes. Contract variations would be swept away and replaced with brand new contracts naming current parties to a WF agreement and removing variations whch have built up over the years. This would be achieved without going out to Public Consulation as is the intention at the moment when a WF programme fundamentally changes when the change is due to something other than defunct WF equipment.
This is somewhat like David and Goliath playing a game of chess!
Clearly, this cannot be allowed to happen and we are taking legal advice.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the World, the same tightening up of WF legislation is taking place in New Zealand and Canada, forcing us to conclude that there is an agreement between the UK , Canadian and New Zealand Governments to make WF mandatory and to bring us into line with Ireland. This obsession with adding fluoride to drinking water is really inappropriate because it ignores the convincing science that fluoride damages the brains of future children and infants.
Federal Court Hearing, USA
The next court hearing, presided over by Judge Edward Chen, will be on 14th September 2021.
COMMENT ON CURRENT AND PAST THREATS:
Northumbria declared (24th March 2019) that it would 'explore' fluoridation. That means that the entire North East is threatened. Letters have been sent to Northumberland County Council and Councillors have been told that WF as practised by fluoridating water companies is not compatible with UK law. A few days later, readership of the research report "A Complete Waste of Money" increased by 40. It's nice to know that Councillors have time to read our letters and research and investigate our concerns.
County Durham, South Tyneside, Sunderland City, Northumberland, Darlington, Middlesbrough and Sheffield Local Authorities (LAs) are all "exploring" water fluoridation. All Councils have now been told about the fact that WF is not compatible with UK legislation and things have gone quiet. But is it a slumbering ogre?
Leicester City has solved its dental decay problems by treating children as individuals via its
Healthy Teeth, Happy Smiles programme. The really good news is that Hull in July 2018 decided that WF is too expensive and the science is not proven so has called off the "exploration". However, it appears that Pro-Fluoridationists in the Hull area are unable to read. Today (20th April 2021), we extracted relevant wild claims from the Website entitled
One Part Per Million which is hosted by a dentist. We've added a commentary. See the
LINK
above.
Notice the new word "explore" has crept into Public Health England's vocabulary in order to persuade LAs to at least commission a feasibility study. Once the money is committed, then LAs will be reluctant to admit that they have wasted money. If an LA is really reluctant, PHE and the Clinical Commissioning Group (NHS) will pay for initial costs thus removing a reason for reluctance to "explore". But note that PHE reserves the right to claw back the capital expenditure, the cost of the feasibility reports and public consultation from the local authority once the fluoride tap has been turned on. (Ref. Drinking Water Inspectorate, Code of Practice on Technical Aspects of Fluoridation of Water Supplies 2016, page 2.). In the case of West Cumbria, PHE has clawed back the cost of installing replacement fluoride dosing equipment. The expectation therefore is that 'exploring' local authorities will also be expected to stump up for everything.
21st July 2019 - update of the seeming situation in Hull
Even though Hull City Council decided to cease 'exploring' WF in summer 2018, dentist Simon Hearnshaw and ex-MP Alan Johnson are still trying to put a brave face on it. We're told that Hull's pro-fluoridation campaign was highly effective (!) and that the new National Community Water Fluoridation Network led by Simon Hearnshaw is succeeding in pushing the WF exploration towards a public consultation. This is odd though, because the feasibility study has not yet surfaced and there has been no discussion at City Council Committee level regarding a resurrection of WF.
Regarding the "highly effective pro-fluoridation campaign", this is sheer self-delusion. UKFFFA and Hull for Pure Water were active for the short time that Hull City Council was being 'persuaded' to 'explore' WF and from our point of view, the one meeting in public which was held by the pro-fluoridationists at Hull University - a meeting laughingly entitled "The Conversation" - ended with several well-targetted questions from the disbelieving audience soundly debunking the panel's claims about fluoride's effectiveness and safety. We were pleased to be able to tell the audience and panel that it was outrageous that in order to add fluoride to drinking water, the water companies add arsenic and a few other undesirables (hydrofluoric acid, antimony, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury and nickel) which are listed in BSEN 12175:2013.
Those opposing WF in Hull were unaware of there being a successful campaign in favour of WF. If anything, the attempt to fluoridate Hull was spearheaded by one Labour Councillor (now retired) and one MP (now no longer an MP). At the time, the entire Labour Party stood behind the retired Labour Councillor but when he retired in April 2018 at the time of the local elections, quite a few Labour Councillors lost their seats and quite a few Lib Dems and Independents took their place. Since the new Councillors were and are against fluoridation, it is hard to see how the pro-fluoridation campaign could have been highly effective.
Update - August 2019. We have received confirmation from Hull City Council (Cllr Phil Webster) that there have been no meetings and no discussions recently by the City Council regarding re-visiting WF. We have to assume that dentist Simon Hearnshaw and ex-MP Alan Johnson are dwelling within a miasma of their own invention. Heaven only knows how the principals who run the British Fluoridation Society have managed to survive for 50 years after constantly breathing in the same miasmic fog which follows them everywhere.
Update - 19th Oct. 2019: Northumberland County Council (NCC) has received a feasibility report from Northumbrian Water and rather too quickly had a Cabinet meeting on 9th October at which they decided to request the Secretary of State to approve a Public Consultation without going through the scrutiny process. Durham County Council has also received a feasibility report but has announced that it will scrutinise. Sunderland City Council has not received a feasibility study but has arranged a series of scrutiny meetings during November. This is a mixed bag of reactions. We are particularly concerned about NCC because parts of the county have not been fluoridated since the mid-2000s due to equipment failure and yet there has been no attempt to compare dental decay before equipment failure with dental decay after failure.
September 2020
The Covid-19 pandemic has put paid to PHE's immediate plans to fluoridate one million residents in the North East of England. We are attempting to discover whether the plans have been cancelled or postponed.
December 2020
We've recently learned that Mr Alan Johnson (retired Hull MP who wanted to fluoridate his own constituents) is a Vice-President of the British Fluoridation Society.
January 2021
Plans to go out to Public Consultation in the North East of England are still on hold. We understand that the Councillors sponsoring WF are hoping to resume the proposal in July 2021.
March 2021
Everything change! The new White Paper 2021 means that none of these proposals and Public Consultations will go ahead and we will have to start all over again by responding (without scrutiny) to the Department of Health and Social Care Public Consultations. We've received confirmation from Durham County that the Council will not now attempt a Public Consultation since the Councils may not be responsible for WF programmes in future.
April 2021
A new phrase has entered the literature: "Rule by Ministerial Decree". Throw out human rights' concerns and the Equality Act 2010 and bring in thinly disguised totalitarianism.
The US Federal Court Case is being re-convened on 22nd April in California. The Environmental Protection Agency has been asked by Judge Edward Chen to measure fluoride against the provisions of the Toxic Substance Control Act in view of the convincing research which has measured a lowering of intelligence by 5-6 IQ points when water is dosed with 0.7 mg Fluoride/litre.
Since April, the EPA has been dragging its feet. Judge Chen has, however, continued to stay on their case!
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