UK - Daily Echo letters and news item

LettersFluoride debate
TODAY councillors will be debating water fluoridation. Many now oppose the measure, but some remain in favour, and they undoubtedly represent many anti-fluoride constituents.
Fluoride through the tap is like poisoning the air, you cannot escape and you cannot help but breath it. Thus, under corporate protection, a pro fluoride councillor sanctions an act that would be illegal as an individual. Those who vote for fluoridation are signing up to the ideology of enforced mass medication through drinking water, and the profoundly unethical precedent it sets for potential delivery of other drugs besides fluoride.
Are councillors in favour of tap water as the compulsory delivery system for medicine? Fluoride enforcement is not benign. It is an assault on YOU as an individual and it deprives you of your absolute right to refuse medication.
Councillors have been fully informed of the risks and harms involved in compulsory fluoridation using Hexafluorosilicic Acid - a toxic industrial waste product that has no medicinal licence. It would not be unreasonable for voters to take legal action against them.
JENNIFER GODSCHALL JOHNSON, Upper Clatford.

• WITH the SCSHA signalling their intent to continue their plans for forced medication of the population of Southampton, a very dangerous precedent is being set. If SCSHA get their way, we will lose the most basic human right of controlling what goes into our body.
Where could this dangerous path lead if unelected people who care nothing for people's choice are allowed to destroy our most fundamental human rights? I have had the opportunity to debate with the SCSHA on Radio the dangers of fluoridation and when I raised Dr Jennifer Luke's work which showed increased concentrations of fluoride in the Pineal gland in areas with water fluoridation. They had no answer other than saying it was safe, they have made no attempt to repeat or explore her research.
There is a huge body of evidence which shows fluoridation is dangerous which is why almost every other week I read of another city which has stopped fluoridation or is in the process of stopping it, eg. Calgary in Canada, Alaska in USA the list is too numerous to quote here.
What of the rights of religious groups or people with philosophical objections who believe it is against their belief system to be force medicated. Well the answer according to SCSHA is shut up and take your medicine.
ARSHAD SHARIF,
Chairman Muslim Council of Southampton.