UK - Daily Echo and Daily Mail Letters

WHILE I agree with Bob Shergold that the fluoridation of our drinking water is against our human rights (Letters, May 24), I would suggest that any claim would be more likely of success if challenged on behalf of those in our society who possess such rights, ie criminals or illegal immigrants.
ALAN KEBBELL, Southampton.

The wrong source?
FLUORIDE in tap water is supposed to be aimed at the younger generation.
How much tap water do they really drink?
Most of them seem to drink bottle water or high energy drinks going by the amount you see littering our streets and if parents are worried about their children's teeth, they can get extra fluoride in other forms. Very angry and it stinks.
MR S DAVIDSON, Bitterne Park, Southampton.

Take court action to prevent lunacy
THE Great Fluoride Debate: Caution must be exercised says Carol Scarborough in her My View column. And so say all of us, wth the exception of the SHA brigade, of course, who are hell bent on their mission of inflicting unknown damage on the health of Hampshire citizens despite the biggest public protest in the country.
No doubt the SHA will ignore all the latest information provided in Carol Scarborough's detailed and very well researched report, Fluoride Is Dangerous'. The truth of the report is obvious for a normal person of average intelligence.
My thanks to Carol and all the leaders and supporters of the Anti-Fluoride Protesters and the Echo who I'm sure will carry on the battle for common sense and democracy.
May I suggest a court injunction be taken out against the SHA, preventing this devious deed taking place (i.e. poisoning our water supply), in the European Court of Human Rights. I support action to prevent this lunacy taking place.
A WILLOTT, Lordswood, Southampton.

Using city as guinea pigs
WITH regards to fluoride in our water, those to whom it was intended will not benefit? How many children drink water these days?
In the 1930s children would go on picnics with jam butties and a bottle of water, and although I don't think children have changed a lot, now they can afford sugary bottled drinks.
Young people don't drink tap water as much as we did.
Then there are people on life-saving drugs - and not just old people, but many young people
too.
How will fluoride in the water affect them and their medicines?
Has SHA really gone into this or is it just bent on using a whole city as guinea pigs? Shame on them and those who support this.
It will be a very sad and slippery slope for democracy if this goes through.
Where are the human rights our generation fought for? And above all integrity?
J BAILEY, Shirley Warren, Southampton.

Additive causes tooth erosion
SO a judge has decided that the people of Totton and other areas will have fluoride added to our water - surely this infringes our human rights not to receive mass medication.
Although fluoride is supposed to protect our teeth, the irony is that there is a substance - a chemical -which is ever more widely added to processed food and soft drinks and which eats away at tooth enamel.
This chemical is described in
various ways, i.e. E330 or flavour enhancer, preservative, anti-oxidant, acidity regulator etc.
The substance I refer to is citric acid.
The one use to which citric acid can be put is to destroy limescale.

Daily Mail Letters - Fluoride fears
THE strategic health authority is set to impose fluoridation in my local water supply, despite 72 per cent of people being opposed to it.
The matter has been taken to court, but the judge, while appearing sympathetic, was handcuffed because the SHA had acted legally, if not morally. A further appeal might be made, but in the meantime I can't tell you how much anxiety this is causing.
This is, after all, a ten-year experiment to study the effects of fluoride. The long-term side-effects are known, so I wonder whether the driving force for this move is the need of industry to rid itself of its waste because it's illegal to dispose of it in the rivers or sea.
Once it's in our drinking/cooking/ bath water, where else will it end up? I'm 79, but still fear the prospect of drinking something that might react adversely to any medication I might take. Far more worrying are the ill effects on every other age group, including babies.
How can an unelected body insist that a private water company add hexafluorosilicic acid to our water?
MAUREEN DARNELL, Southampton.