Ireland - 27 QUESTIONS TO MINISTER ALEX WHITE

HOT PRESS DELIVERS 27 QUESTIONS TO MINISTER ALEX WHITE

Following the publication of 27 Questions to the Minister in charge of fluoridation policy Alex White, in the last issue, Hot Press delivered the questions in person last week...

Adrienne Murphy, 02 Apr 2013

Hot Press journalist Adrienne Murphy, along with the self-styled ‘Girl Against Fluoride’, Aisling FitzGibbon, personally delivered a set of 27 questions in the form of an Open Letter to Junior Minister for Health, Alex White – the Minister in charge of Ireland’s fluoridation policy – at the Department of Health, on Wednesday, March 20.

The Minister accepted a copy of the Open Letter, which was published in full in Hot Press a fortnight ago. The Minister agreed to respond to the series of questions put to him in the magazine, regarding the mandatory fluoridation of Ireland’s water supply – and went on to commit to sitting down to address the issues raised.

“He was very pleasant,” Murphy says of her encounter with the Minister. “The meeting was fortuitous but he responded graciously, in what must have been a difficult situation for him – so I am optimistic that he will really begin to look closely at what is recognised internationally as a highly controversial policy.”

While the supporters of the policy, which has been in place in Ireland since the early 1960s, may not like the terminology, the vast bulk of the population of the Republic is currently being mass medicated through fluoridation of the water supply, with every citizen being forced to consume a substance on the assumption that it is “good for our teeth.”

In our report, which called for an independent review of the long-standing policy, Adrienne Murphy suggested that there is a failure on the part of the authorities to carry out the research necessary to test the effects of the country’s fluoridation policy, as envisaged by Section 6 of the 1960 Fluoridation Act.

“The Minister, Alex White, was appointed to the role only recently,” Adrienne Murphy adds, “so he has no culpability whatsoever in relation to what has happened in the past. That should hopefully mean that he is open to completely re-examining the Irish health authority’s policy of compulsory fluoridation.”

Ireland is the only EU country which engages in mandatory national water fluoridation. An estimated 98% of Europe does not fluoridate the water supply on health as well as on ethical grounds. In no other regard is freedom of choice in medical issues taken away from Irish citizens in a one-size fits all basis.