Ireland - Poots should heed warning over fluoride

Poots should heed warning over fluoride

FAIR play to S McMurray (Write Back, February 18) for focusing attention on the risk of adding to tap water hydrofluorosilicic acid – a product that is not medically licensed, nor a permitted food-additive in the EU.

Only public health backwaters, like the Irish Republic, tolerate such wholesale regulatory infringement.

And as for Edwin Poots' declared intention to add this illicit substance to the food chain, why did he not heed the warning of the World Health Organisation: "Dental and public health administrators should be aware of the total fluoride exposure in the population before introducing any additional fluoride programme for caries prevention." (Fluorides and Oral Health, WHO, 1994)?

I believe it is because he would find that people, even in unfluoridated areas, are already over-burdened with fluoride, as revealed by the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey (2003).

Whatever about a media blackout north of the border, down here in the south neither the national broadcaster, nor the mainstream print media, inform people about this discredited practice.

ROBERT POCOCK

Ireland Against Fluoridation