Ireland - Fluoride battle heats

Debate | Fluoride battle heats up in Ireland as campaigners strip to back Sinn Féin bill

Posted on Jul 26 2013 - 9:51am by Shan Kelly

The 50-year-old battle to get fluoride(s) out of the Irish water supply kicked into high gear this summer as (impromptu) strippers thronged St. Stephen’s Green in support of a Sinn Féin bill, which is currently before the Dáil, to ban the controversial practice.

Leading the campaign is Aisling Fitzgibbon, a 26-year-old nutritionist from Tralee, who is taking the government to court. She has more than 8,000 supporters, including musicians Paddy Casey and Christy Moore.

Aisling has been stripping in public to highlight how the Irish government’s forced fluoridation policy puts her health at risk – by stripping her of her right to drink unmedicated water. Her mother Martha, who is a teacher, suggested the campaign might get more attention if Aisling took her clothes off, after her earlier attempts to highlight forced fluoridation as a human rights abuse in Ireland, were largely ignored.

Aisling is working with activists from Ireland and across the world, including the Fluoride Action Network and veteran Northern Ireland campaigner, Walter Graham. Graham managed to unite enemies such as Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley to defeat UK Government plans to fluoridate Northern Ireland’s water in the 1990s. Graham has recently been advising the current Sinn Féin environment spokesperson, Louth TD Brian Stanley, who presented his bill to ban fluoride(s) in the South to the Irish government in May.

Former Portlaoise mayor Brian Stanley first became aware of the links between water fluoridation, thyroid illness and cancers after he read an article by former hunger striker Briain MacUaid. Stanley’s mother died from thyroid cancer in 1995, so he was determined to address the issue when Sinn Féin gave him the environment portfolio in 2011.

Stanley maintains that it’s now generally accepted that the main action of fluoride on dental enamel is topical, so there is little benefit from drinking it. Babies are particularly at risk, because their bodies have not developed the ability to filter out toxins. And the effect of fluoride is cumulative; as he puts it: “There is no logic to putting it in every cell in your body. It was brought in when not everyone in Ireland had access to toothpaste. That is not true now.”............................