When the World Health Organization in its most recent issue of Drinking Water Guidelines recommends that fluoride should never be missing from our water, is it really doing the bidding of the Sugar Industry?

Certainly dental caries is promoted by our consumption of sugar and sweets, including soft drinks, and the economic interests behind these junk foods are enormous. Fluoride provides a convenient "red herring" to put our attention on a supposed "deficiency". What we should do is examine what junk we are putting into our mouths calling it food.

And certainly fluoride is not something to swallow voluntarily, it has been linked with aggression, lower IQ scores, cancer, obesity, irritable bowel syndrome and it seems to interfere with thyroid hormones.
 

Fluoride is systemically toxic and seems to be an ingredient of many of the chemical industry's products, from pesticides to medicines.

Joe Thornton has looked at the composition of the WHO fluoride panel and it appears that the recommendations are authored by a clique of well known fluoride promoters, rather than a wide selection of experts in health and biochemistry, as one would have expected.

Paul Connett of the Fluoride Action Network introduces Thornton's research with the following words.

Today I received this tour de force from Joe Thornton, an Irish citizen who resides in Germany. He rips into the World Health Organization (WHO) for their fluoride section in their new report on Drinking Water Guidelines. He decries their (unsupportable) use of the word "nutrient" to describe fluoride and he exposes the fact that three of the four experts (Drs. Michael Lennon, Denis O'Mullane and Helen Whelton) who drew up the guidelines for fluoride have a hugely pro-fluoridation bias. This bias is exposed in excruciating detail...

You will need a lot of stamina to get through this tightly documented "treatise" but this is a gold mine of information for those who have an interest in the abuse of the public trust by health and regulatory bodies throughout the world. If you cannot get through it all in one reading, file it away in a safe place ready for the next official who tells you that fluoridation must be OK because it is supported by the World Health Organization.

For the brave ones among you, here is Joe Thornton's treatise showing us the entrance to this particular rabbit hole...

The WHO Drinking Water Guidelines and Fluoride
"Two legs good, four legs bad"

The World Health Organization (WHO) has drawn up new Drinking Water Guidelines, including guidelines on the level of fluoride.

The WHO record on promoting fluoride is documented in, among other places, Barry Groves' book "Fluoride: Drinking Ourselves To Death" (Newleaf, 2001). To put it bluntly, the WHO has been part of the fluoridation fraud since 1958. The current revision of drinking water guidelines shows that nothing has improved in the WHO as regards fluoride. There is a serious absence of honesty, scientific standards, and concern about human health.

We should remind ourselves that... "There is no evidence that fluoride is an essential nutrient for humans." (Physicians' Desk Reference)

In 1979 the U.S. FDA required the deletion of all government references previously classifying fluoride as "essential or probably essential" (Federal Register, March 16, 1979, pg. 16006).

In other words, nobody needs fluoride -- ever. So, given that fluoride is a deadly cumulative poison AND is one of the world's most troublesome industrial pollutants, you would expect that the WHO would be warning us off fluoride. But you'd be wrong.

WHO's BIG MISTAKE #1:

The WHO guidelines name fluoride as a "nutrient mineral" and "essential" for human health. But fluoride is not a nutrient of any sort. Not only is it not essential, it should be avoided at all costs. The WHO's error (or deception) reinforces the widespread belief in the concept of "fluoride-deficient water", a belief that seems to have infected all the WHO people involved.

Many of WHO's web pages name fluoride as "a nutrient" or "essential". For example:

"Chromium, copper, fluoride, iodine, manganese, molybdenum, and selenium are essential elements in human nutrition..."

And in this report we find the statement that fluoride is "known or suspected to be essential for humans." And: "The optimal drinking water concentration of fluoride for dental health is generally between 0.5 to 1.0 mg/litre and depends upon volume of consumption and uptake and exposure from other sources. These values are based on epidemiological studies conducted over the past 70 years in communities in many countries with natural and added fluoride in their drinking water. In this concentration range the maximum caries preventative effect is achieved while minimizing the levels of dental fluorosis."

It needs to be said that there is NO scientific basis for such an "optimal" concentration of fluoride. Those so-called epidemiological studies of the last 70 years do not stand up to scrutiny.

The WHO document goes on:

"Where the aggregate risk factors for dental caries are low (and are remaining low) consuming low fluoride water would probably have little or no impact on dental caries, but to guard against possible net loss of fluoride from the skeleton, the group felt that consideration should be given to maintaining a baseline level of 0.1 to 0.3 mg/l."

Now that is dangerous lunacy. Really, it's just a false argument for universal water fluoridation. Yes, UNIVERSAL. This is the WHO getting ready to instruct governments all over the world as follows: "Any public water supplies with fluoride levels below 0.1 mg/l (ranging up to 0.3 for cooler climates) need to be fluoridated with artificial fluoride." (That means MOST water supplies in the world.)

Don't have any doubt about it: This is a global project to dose every human being with unmeasured amounts of toxic waste fluoride (while dispersing vast amounts of it in the environment). See Christopher Bryson's exposé "The Fluoride Deception" (Seven Stories Press), published last year.

In its nutrition guidelines, the WHO gives an "Adequate Intake" (AI) figure as its recommendation for fluoride. (Note the prior error of including fluoride in "nutrition guidelines".)

Q. How do they get the AI figure?

A. "When there is insufficient information available to calculate an EAR (Estimated Average Requirement), an AI value based on experimentally derived intake levels or approximations of customary mean nutrient intakes by group or groups of healthy subjects, is used instead of the traditional RDA (Recommended Dietary Allowance)."

The WHO report goes on:

"AIs are provided instead of RDAs when there is insufficient scientific information to estimate requirements. The nutrient intake of breast-fed infants is usually utilised to set AIs for infants from 0 to 6 months of age, and for infants 7 to 12 months of age the average intake from human milk plus the additional intake provided by complementary foods is utilised (WHO/FAO/IAEA 1996; IOM 2002; SCF 1993)."

Somehow, in the case of fluoride, this practice of utilizing "the nutrient intake of breast-fed infants" was forgotten about. An infant fed on formula made up with fluoridated water gets about 100 times as much fluoride as a breast-fed infant. The WHO's range of AI figures seems to be chosen to fit artificially fluoridated water.

The WHO's redefining of fluoride as a "nutrient" is truly a "two-legs-good, four-legs-bad" rewriting of reality. By coincidence, the great fluoridation project was being launched in the U.S. just as "Animal Farm" was first published in 1945.

The difference between PRE-fluoridation statements from the U.S. medical establishment and POST-fluoridation statements is startling. For example, in 1943, the editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association stated: "Fluorides are general protoplasmic poisons, probably because of their capacity to modify the metabolism of cells by changing the permeability of the cell membrane and by inhibiting certain enzyme systems. The exact mechanism of such actions is obscure." -- JAMA, Sept 18, 1943, Editorial. And in 1944, the editorial in the Journal of the American Dental Association stated that "...drinking water containing as little as 1.2 to 3 ppm of fluorine will cause such developmental disturbances in bones as osteosclerosis, spondylosis and osteopetrosis, as well as goiter." -- JADA, October 1944, Editorial

The WHO defines Guideline Values for chemicals in drinking water according to the following definition:

"A guideline value represents the concentration of a chemical constituent that does not result in any significant risk to the health of the consumer over a lifetime of consumption."

In the new Guidelines, the guideline value for fluoride in drinking water remains at 1.5 mg/litre (the same as 1.5 ppm).

That guideline value is outrageous. It must have been chosen to protect the policy of fluoridation. To put it mildly, the figure is not protective of human health. That is made clear even in some of WHO's own recommendations. For example:

"The Guidelines recommend a GV of 1.5 mg/litre on the assumption that the daily per capita consumption of drinking-water is about 2 litres. At this level, dental fluorosis may occur in a certain proportion of the population." (see here)

Dental fluorosis is the first sign of fluoride poisoning. Baroness Hayman, on behalf of the British Government, stated: "We accept that dental fluorosis is a manifestation of systemic toxicity." (Hansard, 20 Apr 1999 : WA 158)

When you look over the WHO's history, you see a peculiar logic to certain statements about fluoride, suggesting that the WHO people are "covering themselves" against possible claims over health damage. In their 1971 International Drinking Water Standards, the WHO warned: "In the assessment of the safety of a water supply with respect to the fluoride concentration, the total daily fluoride intake by the individual must be considered."

And in their 1994 monograph: "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)

In their current documents we find warnings like this: "In setting national standards for fluoride or in evaluating the possible health consequences of exposure to fluoride, it is essential to consider the intake of water by the population of interest and the intake of fluoride from other sources (e.g., from food, air and dental preparations)."

But in the last 35 years, few if any public health officials anywhere in the world (except possibly India and China) have heeded those warnings from the WHO. And the WHO shows no concern about that; it just keeps on pushing fluoride.

So, what is going wrong in the WHO, this organization that is supposed to protect public health throughout the world? You might say that, since most of the WHO's funding comes from the U.S., we must expect them to follow Washington's wishes, that is, fluoridate every human being as much as possible. (That is still Washington's line, despite the abovementioned correction on fluoride "essentiality" by the FDA.) However, we should look further than that -- at the people behind these WHO statements and recommendations.

WHO's BIG MISTAKE #2:

In drafting the Guidelines, the WHO recruited experts on "nutrient minerals in drinking water" (see here). Those experts included four dentists who were given the task of writing about fluoride in drinking water: Prof Jan Ekstrand, Prof Michael Lennon, Prof Denis O'Mullane and Dr Helen Whelton.

Leaving aside Ekstrand, who has some right to be regarded as an expert (see below), it must be said that enlisting authors like that is known as PUTTING THE FOX IN CHARGE OF THE HENHOUSE.

O'Mullane, Whelton and Lennon are not nutrition experts, nor are they medical experts. They are not fluoride experts; they are fluoride promoters. Their professional reputation rests largely on their association with fluoride -- fluoride as something to be praised, promoted, and forced on people.

Many of the statements in the WHO documents written by Ekstrand, Lennon, O'Mullane and Whelton are mind-boggling. For example:

They write about "the need to ensure an appropriate minimum intake of fluoride to prevent loss from bone".

And this: "In parts [of the UK], such as the South East of England, dental caries is mainly under control without water fluoridation; in other regions, such as the North West of England, the prevalence of dental caries is substantially higher and water fluoridation remains an important public health objective."
(see here)

Lennon (University of Liverpool) has been for some years the chairman of the British Fluoridation Society, a "quango" that promotes fluoridation (and, ridiculously, gets UK taxpayers' money to do so). Anti-fluoridation campaigners in the UK can spell out at length why Lennon should not be advising anybody on fluoride in drinking water.

O'Mullane and Whelton are from University College Cork in Ireland and are key players in the worldwide fluoridation project.

O'Mullane, speaking about fluoride (or fluoridation), stated:
"It harms nobody and it does a lot of good."
-- Irish Times, Aug 16th, 1999

Whelton told the Irish Times, May 17th, 1999:
"There is no cause for concern at the levels of fluoride people are getting. There is no reason to remove fluoride from the water."

These were not off-the-cuff remarks; they were made deliberately, to Ireland's most influential newspaper. Bear in mind that Ireland is the only democracy with mandatory water fluoridation. 73% of the public water is fluoridated, and exceedances of the legal limit of 1 mg/l fluoride are very common. O'Mullane has admitted that 50% of children in fluoridated areas have dental fluorosis, the first indicator of fluoride poisoning.

There is little evidence that O'Mullane and Whelton are interested in safe drinking water. Their interest is in promoting the use of fluoride.

Those statements by O'Mullane and Whelton show an extraordinary ignorance. Yet the WHO regards them as the world's experts on fluoride. What is going on in the WHO?

If you need any more convincing that O'Mullane and Whelton are the wrong people to be devising drinking water standards, please read on. Then ask yourself: Could anyone really believe that these people would make an honest assessment of the hazards of fluoride in drinking water?

Not only is the WHO out of touch, it is out of control. When WHO officials are asked awkward questions about fluoride, they simply don't answer. For example, the late Jane Jones, Campaign Director of the UK National Pure Water Association, put questions to the WHO more than four years ago.

The answers never came. The silence is eloquent. While they say nothing, we can guess what they mean by their non-answers: "Be a good girl/boy and take your poison, I mean, medicine, I mean, tooth-preserving life-enhancing wonder-chemical, and go away and don't bother us with questions that have been asked so many times before. Can't you see we have lots of letters after our names and don't deserve to be bothered by the likes of you ungrateful troublemakers who probably have vested interests in opposing this outstandingly successful public health measure?"

This sort of behaviour by the WHO is aped by national governments (e.g., Ireland, U.S., Australia) and even by EU Commissioners. When Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom was asked awkward questions by Irish environmental group Voice, she stonewalled. And she is now Commissioner for Institutions and Communication!

Prof O'Mullane's long-time collaborator, Dr Seamus O'Hickey, declared (here): "I don't doubt the sincerity of the anti-fluoridation people but I think they are being misled by a small number of people who gain financially from it." Dr O' Hickey is the former chief dental officer for the Irish government and adviser to the South African fluoridation committee. He is also the chairman of the "Expert Body" set up by the Irish Minister for Health in 2002 to implement the recommendations of the notorious, fraudulent Forum on Fluoridation.

A WHO press release last year stated:

"While it appears to be less severe in most African countries, the report [on oral diseases] states that with changing living conditions, dental caries are expected to increase in many developing countries in Africa, particularly as a result of the growing consumption of sugars and inadequate exposure to fluorides."

As if avoiding fluoride could *cause* tooth decay ...

Consider the following WHO recommendation, in a Feb 1994 press release:

"From the public health standpoint, they [the WHO experts] advocate as a general rule a strategy of low but regular exposure to fluorides... This goal is described in the report adopted in Geneva [1994] as 'maintaining a constant, low-level of fluoride in as many mouths as possible', and when it is attained by adding fluoride to water, salt or toothpaste, the change in incidence of dental caries in the population in question soon becomes evident."

That could have been written by O'Mullane and Whelton themselves. There's a simple term for "maintaining a constant, low-level of fluoride in as many mouths as possible"; it is MASS POISONING.

Here is a recent example of O'Mullane and Whelton playing down the seriousness of fluoride poisoning:

"The risk [of fluorosis] is of aesthetic concern primarily during the period of enamel development of the permanent central incisors, although this largely appears to be a cosmetic rather than a public-health issue."
-- Whelton HP, Ketley CE, McSweeney F, O'Mullane DM. A Review of Fluorosis in the European Union: Prevalence, Risk Factors and Aesthetic Issues. Source: Community Dent Oral Epidemiol 2004;32 (Suppl. 1):9-18.

Enormous influence of WHO

Of course all this irresponsibility would not matter so much if the WHO did not exercise such an enormous influence on politicians throughout the world. Politicians generally act as if the WHO is some ultimate authority. And the fluoridators -- those dentist academics with many letters after their names, and the spineless public health officials who collaborate with them -- constantly remind us that they have the backing of the WHO.

All of this is a fine example of the fluoridation conspiracy in action -- the conspiracy that is comprehensively described in Christopher Bryson's book "The Fluoride Deception".

So, what should the WHO Guidelines on fluoride be? It is very simple: The WHO should act to MINIMIZE exposure to fluoride. That is the only approach that is compatible with medical, scientific, and ethical principles. And that is what scientists of principle have been pointing out for decades.
 

Who is involved?

Prof Jan Ekstrand from Sweden may be making a useful contribution to the WHO Guidelines task, but his input needs to be balanced by other highly qualified people who understand both the toxicity of fluoride and the issue of whether fluoride has any application in human healthcare. Unfortunately such people are absent; instead we get Michael Lennon, Denis O'Mullane and Helen Whelton.

Ekstrand made the following significant statements:

"Based on this review, we conclude that fluoride intakes of infants and children have shown a rather steady increase since 1930, are likely to continue to increase, and will be associated with further increase in the prevalence of enamel fluorosis unless intervention measures are instituted." - Fomon SJ, Ekstrand J, Ziegler EE. (2000). Fluoride intake and prevalence of dental fluorosis: trends in fluoride intake with special attention to infants. Journal of Public Health Dentistry 60(3):131-9.

"The prevalence of dental fluorosis in the United States has increased during the last 30 years, both in communities with fluoridated water and in communities with nonfluoridated water." - Fomon SJ, Ekstrand J, Ziegler EE. (2000). Fluoride intake and prevalence of dental fluorosis: trends in fluoride intake with special attention to infants. Journal of Public Health Dentistry 60(3):131-9.

"To limit fluoride intake to amounts [to less than] 100 µg kg d, it is necessary to avoid use of fluoridated water as a diluent for powdered infant formulas..." - Fomon SJ, Ekstrand J. (1999). Fluoride intake by infants. Journal of Public Health Dentistry 59(4):229-34.

"The studies presented here show that fluoride also has the ability to affect the cells of the human immune system." - Loftenius A, Andersson B, Butler JE, Ekstrand J (1999). Fluoride Augments the Mitogenic and Antigenic Response of Human Blood Lymphocytes in vitro. Caries Research 1999;33:148-155 (DOI: 10.1159/000016509)

However, some of Ekstrand's work is not reassuring:

There is something very worrying about this study because it is clearly unethical to give fluoride supplements to infants or children.

In the same vein, you have to wonder about the ethics of the following study by Ekstrand et al in which volunteers ingested mercury amalgam.

Another study shows he believes in something called "optimal fluoride therapy":

"Doses of sodium fluoride of about 50 mg a day have long term beneficial effects on the mineral content of bone and the incidence of fracture."
http://www.slweb.org/spak-1989.html

And this is also worrying:

IA2004 IADR Awards & Fellowship Recipients -- E. W. Borrow Memorial Award
Sponsored by the Borrow Foundation
Jan Ekstrand, Karolinska Institute, Sweden

When you consider what the Borrow Dental Milk Foundation has done, you have to wonder about Ekstrand's wisdom in accepting such an award.

In turn, Ekstrand's collaboration with Lennon, O'Mullane and Whelton calls into question his judgement and his own integrity.

Here are further details about Prof Denis O'Mullane and Dr Helen Whelton:

Prof Denis O'Mullane is Professor of Dentistry in University College Cork (UCC). Dr Helen Whelton has been O'Mullane's right-hand person in UCC for many years and has now taken over from him as Director of the Oral Health Services Research Centre: http://ohsrc.ucc.ie/html/about.html

Irish people who have been campaigning to end fluoridation for some years know only too well that O'Mullane and Whelton are at the core of the fluoride problem. These arrogant dentists act as if they had a divine right to decide what is safe water and as if they were the final arbiters of the fluoride levels Irish people should be forced to ingest.

O'MULLANE:

O'Mullane has directed or been involved in ALL research done on the effects of fluoridation in Ireland. However, none of that research was looking for health effects other than on the teeth.

O'Mullane stated in the journal Evidence-Based Dentistry (2000, free issue):
"The benefits of fluoride tablet administration are not in question."

An interesting contrast with his statement in 2001:

"It is now well-established that fluoride's primary method of action is a topical one."
And he added:
"To ensure that fluoride bestows maximum preventive benefit, it is important to maintain the ambient level of fluoride in saliva and plaque. Clearly, combining fluoride mouth rinses, fluoride toothpastes, fluoride tablets, and fluoride gels and varnishes in patients in either fluoridated or nonfluoridated communities will help maintain fluoride levels."

For many years O'Mullane allowed his name to be associated with statements such as the following from the British Nutrition Foundation (a front for the sugar lobby):
"Water fluoridation is the most effective public health strategy for caries prevention."

History of the British Nutrition Foundation

Quoting from their website: "The British Nutrition Foundation was set up in July 1967... established as an independent organisation to stimulate research and education in the field of nutrition. Nine food companies provided a financial guarantee for the venture, of which Marks & Spencer Ltd, Tate & Lyle Ltd and Unilever PLC are still member companies today. Other companies that have remained with us from the start include Cadburys, Sainsbury's and Procter & Gamble. [That's virtually a roll-call of the big British sweets & confectionery manufacturers!]

"... Above all the British Nutrition Foundation remains an impartial voice in the current nutritional debate." [What a joke!]

And under "Key Facts / Oral Health", we found:

"This is a summary of the findings from the BNF conference on 20 January 1999, which launched the BNF Task Force report Oral Health: diet and other factors. Speakers were Dr Jack Edelman (Chairman of the Task Force), Professor Mike Edgar (University of Liverpool), . . . and Professor Denis O'Mullane (University College Cork). Professor Robert Pickard, Director-General of the BNF, chaired the meeting."

And there's more:

"The British Nutrition Foundation provides independent [!!??] and authoritative scientific information on the relationship between food, nutrition and health."

Talking of Unilever, who make vast profits from sales of high-sugar foods and drinks as well as fluoride dental products ... In the late 1990s, they provided the funding to set up the "Unilever Dental Faculty", a pro-fluoride website resource for dentists. This website claimed to offer "independent" and authoritative scientific information. And, surprise, surprise, it also carried advertising for Unilever products. But the main man behind the website -- its first chairman -- was none other than Prof Denis O'Mullane. Fortunately for his reputation the website is no longer to be found.

And a study published in the journal Caries Research in 2000 shows that O'Mullane has been collaborating with Unilever more recently. Two of the authors are from Unilever Dental Research in England.

This Biomed project, with funding from the European Union, is one aspect of O'Mullane's research activities. Among others involved with O'Mullane's research are Dr Seamus O'Hickey (see below) and Dr Miriam Wiley who featured with O'Mullane in the Fluoridation Forum set up by Health Minister Micheal Martin.

O'Mullane has been very actively involved in the International Association for Dental Research (IADR), which is allied with big industry. Another of O'Mullane's long-time collaborators, Prof John Clarkson, head of the Dental School in Trinity College Dublin, was the President of the IADR for some years and is one of the high priests of global fluoridation.

One of O'Mullane's many affiliations is the European Association of Dental Public Health (EADPH). He ran the show at their annual congress in Ireland in 2000:

"2000 Cork, Ireland: 13th to 15th September hosted by EADPH Co-President 2000 and BASCD President, Professor Denis O'Mullane."

O'Mullane is on the Prize Committee of ORCA, the European Organisation for Caries Research. He is also a past president of the organization. Consider in particular the list of Corporate Members.

O'Mullane's influence is enormous, and not just on the dental students in Cork (one of only two dental schools in the Republic of Ireland). Those dental students are not taught the truth about fluoride. This is attested to by the growing number of Irish dentists in the organization Irish Dentists Opposing Fluoridation.

O'Mullane was prominent at the IADR conference in South Africa in 1997. This conference seemed to lay the groundwork for the fluoridation push in South Africa. In the same year, O'Mullane's long-time associate Dr Seamus O'Hickey (Trinity College Dublin and the Irish Dept of Health) spent time in South Africa doing fluoridation propaganda and preparing the report that persuaded the government to go for mandatory fluoridation.

Over the years, O'Mullane has been collaborating with many of the best-known fluoride promoters -- among them Clarkson and Prof. Dr. Thomas Marthaler in Switzerland. O'Mullane and Clarkson have a lot to do with Ireland remaining the only democracy in the world with mandatory water fluoridation, while Marthaler has a lot to do with Switzerland's embracing of fluoride.

One of the most significant episodes in the history of fluoridation in Ireland was a session of the Parliamentary Committee on Health and Children on July 10th, 2003.

The Committee was inquiring into the controversial Forum on Fluoridation. O'Mullane testified:

"I have been measuring the effectiveness of water fluoridation for 32 years; I carry out studies to establish whether water fluoridation reduces dental decay. All the studies have shown that it does."

However, he and Whelton had previously stated:

"In the last national survey of adult dental health in the Republic of Ireland [carried out by O'Mullane & Whelton in 1989-90] it was shown that there was a substantial increase in caries prevalence in subjects in the age groups 16-25. It was postulated that this increase was due to the dramatic decline in caries in subjects up to the age of 15 leaving more surfaces at risk." -- O'Mullane, Whelton, 2001 "The Use Of Combinations Of Caries Preventive Procedures"

In the Parliamentary Committee, O'Mullane went on:

"I showed photographs of how things were in the 1960s and I also demonstrated what we are talking about in regard to fluorosis. It is a mild alteration in the colour of the teeth. As Professor Clarkson pointed out, we did not know at the time there would be mild changes in the colour of teeth. A point was made about the topical effect as against the systemic effect. There is no doubt that our knowledge of how fluoride works has altered quite a lot in the last 30, 40 or 50 years. I did not say, Deputy Gormley, that there was no systemic effect. There is some systemic effect but the topical effect has been understated."

(O'Mullane's unscientific opinion that there is "some systemic effect" seems to be the justification for the ongoing fluoridation of the Irish population.) O'Mullane then responded to a question about the failure to deal with the 50 issues raised by Prof Paul Connett. Connett had been invited to address the Forum in October 2000 and, even though all Forum members agreed that the issues were important and needed to be addressed, the Forum report (which arrived a year late) managed to avoid mentioning Connett altogether.

O'Mullane testified:

"When one looks at the body of the fluoridation report, almost all of these questions are addressed one way or the other."

No, they're not! Of course, if Connett's questions were addressed in the report, O'Mullane could simply have compiled a list of the appropriate page references. That would have entailed just a few hours work -- if the information was there. But the Connett questions are not addressed in the report (just like most of the important questions about fluoridation).

O'Mullane went on to say:

"A document is now being prepared addressing specifically the 50 questions which will be ready in due course."

In due course! Dr Seamus O'Hickey was employed by the Forum in October 2001 to edit that document -- the responses to Connett's arguments. There is still no sign of it. The next we heard of O'Hickey was that the Minister for Health had given him the task of chairing the group of people known as the "Expert Body" to implement the recommendations of the Forum. That was three years ago. Not one of the recommendations of the Forum has been implemented.

This is the same Dr O'Hickey who was adviser to the South African fluoridation committee. One of his arguments, which the South African government apparently found persuasive, was: "[Fluoridation is] equitable, in that rich and poor would benefit equally."

O'Mullane stated: "The spread of decay in society is not even. It is very much a phenomenon of poverty as much as of anything else."

That echoes a clumsy pronouncement by O'Hickey's successor as Chief Dental Officer in Ireland's Dept of Health, Dr Gerard Gavin: "We will not always need fluoridation but we have large areas of social deprivation and there is a link with this group and oral ill-health." -- Irish Independent newspaper 30 Nov 1999. Gavin (who has now left the civil service for the private sector). The specious argument that fluoridation is "needed" for poor people is also used by senior medical figures in Ireland.
 

Later in the parliamentary committee session, referring to research on fluorosis, O'Mullane described himself as "an objective scientist". That committee record is also notable for several outrageous pro-fluoride comments from other members of the Fluoridation Forum.

WHELTON:

University College Cork: Senior Lecturer in Dental Public Health & Preventive Dentistry since 1998. Director of the Oral Health Services Research Centre since 2002.

Whelton is involved in the same things as O'Mullane: the IADR, EAPHD, and the usual pro-fluoridation research.

Whelton was, for ten years until 2002, the only dentistry representative on the Health Research Board, the Government agency that controls health research in Ireland.

The university magazine, UCC's "College Courier", lists some research grants awarded to O'Mullane and Whelton in 2001/2:

Professor Denis O'Mullane/Dr Helen Whelton, IR£459,857 from the Eastern Health Board [the health board that purchases all the fluoride for Irish fluoridation]
Dr Helen Whelton, IR£40,000 from the Health Research Board [of which Whelton was at that time a member]

(see also here)
Dr Helen Whelton, IR£35,240 from the Health Research Board.

On the Health Research Board web site, we found:

Research Project Grants (General) 2002
"Economic Modelling of Services Utilisation Data and Epidemiological Data for Oral Health Services"
Dr Helen Whelton
Oral Health Services Research Centre
University Dental School, Cork

Health Research Board of Ireland
Research Programmes Grants Awarded by HRB in 2002
13. Water Fluoridation and Health: The Benefits and Risks of Fluoride on the Island of Ireland (Principal investigator: Professor Denis O'Mullane, University Dental School and Hospital Cork)

Note: This is what a recent Internet search turned up. O'Mullane and Whelton have probably received many other grants of public money.

O'Mullane and Whelton have done a lot of research over the years, but, in 41 years of Irish fluoridation, nobody has ever researched the health effects other than on teeth. This is despite the fact that the fluoridation law (passed in 1960) requires that such research be carried out.

O'Mullane/Whelton research invariably comes up with the following "findings":

* Fluoride is wonderful. * Fluorosis is only a "minor, cosmetic problem". * More research is needed. (Real meaning: More money is needed by O'Mullane, Whelton and their associates for their "research".)

In the world of O'Mullane & Whelton, every improvement is due to fluoride and every problem, except "minor, cosmetic" fluorosis, is due to something else. See, for example this page.

O'Mullane & Whelton have recently been applying their "expertise" to, among other places, Pakistan -- "determining the optimal concentration of fluoride in drinking water in Pakistan". As if that country didn't have enough problems. See: Khan AA, Whelton H, O'Mullane D. Determining the optimal concentration of fluoride in drinking water in Pakistan. Community Dent Oral Epidemiol 2004; 32: 166-72. © Blackwell Munksgaard, 2004

See also:
Ayyaz A Khan, Helen Whelton, Denis O Mullane, Sharea ljaz.
Decision-making for a National Program of Community Fluoride use in Pakistan
J Pak Dent Assoc Sep 2002;11(3):155-60.
Community Dentistry, Lahore Medical & Dental College, Lahore

What a sick concept -- "Community Fluoride use"?

Whelton is currently on the board of the Women's Health Council, a statutory body that advises the Irish Minister for Health on all aspects of women's health. Whelton was appointed to the WHC by Health Minister Micheal Martin who was responsible for the infamous Forum on Fluoridation. Martin's Alma Mater is University College Cork.

Whelton was also appointed last year to the National Task Force on Obesity by the same Health Minister. Since in the past she has shown little interest in the effects of sugar consumption, you have to wonder what she might have to contribute there.

A report in the Irish Examiner newspaper, 22 Nov 2004, shows the close interplay between Whelton and Martin.

Monograph

We have already made reference to the 1994 WHO monograph about fluoride:
"Fluorides and oral health" [The title alone gives the game away!]
WHO Technical Report Series No. 846 - World Health Organization, Geneva.

A new version of this monograph is in the works. The editor is Dr Deborah Chapman, an environmental scientist from, surprise, surprise, University College Cork. Yes, the same UCC of O'Mullane, Whelton, and Martin fame (Micheal Martin, the former Irish health minister who championed fluoridation). What a coincidence! All from the same little university in the little city of Cork.

According to the WHO website, Dr Chapman is the editor of the WHO-sponsored series of guidebooks on water resources management and has ensured compatibility on issues such as Water Quality Assessments, Water Quality Monitoring, Water Pollution Control and Toxic Cyanobacteria in Water.

For the sake of public health throughout the world, we have to hope that Dr Chapman doesn't pay too much attention to her dentist colleagues. But since fluoride has NO positive role in human health, including oral health, it is clear that Dr Chapman has failed to grasp the fundamentals.

Another interesting coincidence is that Prof Denis O'Mullane's uncle, the late Tadhg O'Mullane, was for many years the Chief Chemist of the Irish Sugar Company (a state company) at its main factory in Thurles in the south of Ireland. Following that job, Tadhg O'Mullane was, for 26 years from 1961, Professor of Dairy and Food Microbiology in UCC where he was a very influential figure, including serving as a member of UCC's Governing Body (of which Whelton is now a member). See obituary:

One last question

How can intelligent people fail to understand the simplest of facts? Fluoride is not a nutrient; it is a poison. Tooth decay is caused by sugar, and nothing else!

Joe Thornton, April 2005