Fluoridating drinking water for the prevention of tooth
caries is in violation of the European Directive on
Medicinal Products for Human Use, which came into force
across the EU on October 30, according to an article in the
Irish Medical News.
"Under the Directive, the fluoride added to drinking water
is a medicine and as such requires marketing authorisation,
which it has never obtained either in Ireland or the EU,"
says VOICE (Voice of Irish Concern for the Environment)
campaigner Mr Robert Pocock.
In the UK, Liberal Democrat councillor Sue King's North and
Midlands Against Fluoridation argues in a very similar
manner:
"... when fluoride - in ANY form - is added to water with
the intent to medicate then that water becomes a medicine,
and must comply with the regulations relating to the
registration, licensing, sale and administration of
medicines. This is now an absolute requirement, and
enforceable under EU legislation, the UK Government's
dispensation for silicofluorides to be used to medicate
dental caries is without substance."
While consumers and environmental campaigners are opposing
the addition of toxic-waste-by-product fluoride to the
drinking water, governments seem to have a different agenda
altogether. According to a report in The Telegraph, ...
the first significant attempt for more than 20 years to
extend water fluoridation across England has been launched
by the Government. Health chiefs have been told to use new
powers granted by Parliament to add fluoride to their
supplies as a way of improving the oral health of their
populations and to ''reduce inequalities''.
Across the Atlantic in the U.S., where EPA unions
representing thousands of members have called for a
moratorium, fluoride is a hot topic as well.
Fluoridealert.org has the news.
And even down under, we see the same syndrome taking
hold. In Queensland, Australia, Premier Peter Beattie and
Health Minister Stephen Robertson announced that the State
Government will offer financial rebates to communities who
decide to fluoridate their local water supplies. (Sunshinecoast.com
reports)
Fluoride is one of those big issues that divide governments
from the governed. Why? My best guess is that the science of
fluoride has been skewed by hidden interests that have
little to do with the avowed noble goal of protecting our
teeth.
If you are wondering how I come to that conclusion, just
google "fluoride" on this site - or search the web for
fluoride mind control or fluoride atomic bomb.
That should provide some background to form your own
opinion.
Here are copies of the Irish and the UK fluoride
campaigners' statements...
- - -
Water fluoridation invalidates new
EU Medicines Directive in Ireland
(Irish Medical News)
A prominent environmental group has claimed that water
fluoridation in Ireland invalidates a new EU Medicines
Directive.
"A key EU Directive, 2004/ 27/EC, Medicinal Products for
Human Use, which came into force across the EU on October
30, will not be capable of being transposed into Irish law
until the Government ends drinking water fluoridation. Under
the Directive, the fluoride added to drinking water is a
medicine and as such requires marketing authorisation, which
it has never obtained either in Ireland or the EU," said
VOICE (Voice of Irish Concern for the Environment)
campaigner Mr Robert Pocock.
He stated that VOICE has been alerting people for some time
to "the failure of the Irish Medicines Board to implement
previous and similar EU law on medicines by allowing 2.8
million people to be dosed with this unauthorised medicine
via their drinking water". According to Mr Pocock, the new
Medicinal Products Directive again defines a medicinal
product as "any substance... presented as having properties
for treating or preventing disease in human beings".
"Almost every time the Health Minister refers to the
fluoride added to water she claims that it prevents the
disease of dental caries. Yet her Department appears never
to have checked why the Irish Medicines Board - responsible
to her - has not, if it is a medicine, issued a product
authorisation for the fluoride chemical used," he said.
Mr Pocock pointed out that in 1983 the European Court of
Justice had ruled that if a product is represented as having
a beneficial effect on some medical condition then that
product is a medicine under the terms of the Directive,
"even if it is in fact ineffective". The Irish Medicines
Board has reinforced this interpretation in Guidelines on
Medicinal Products (4) by quoting the ECJ ruling: "A product
which is recommended or described as having preventive or
curative properties is a medicinal product... even if it is
generally considered as a foodstuff and even if it has no
known therapeutic effect in the present state of scientific
knowledge."
- - -
NAMAF - North and Midlands Against
Fluoridation
& The National Register of Children with Dental Fluorosis
(Press Release)
Fluoridation in UK is now illegal
Campaigners will lobby Directors of the Board for the
newly formed Consumer Council for Water ( known as CCWater)
Venue: Consumer Council for Water - Victoria Square
House, Victoria Sq. Birmingham, B2 4AJ
Time: 1st November 2005 10.00am - 12.00 o clock
New EU legislation - DIRECTIVE 2004/27/EC OF THE EUROPEAN
PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 31 March 2004 amending
Directive 2001/83/EC (see 9 below) has an impact on all
existing fluoridation schemes which currently affect 6
million people in the UK who are forced to drink, cook with
and bathe in fluoridated water.
All ingestible substances are either foods or medicines,
when fluoride - in ANY form - is added to water with the
intent to medicate then that water becomes a medicine, and
must comply with the regulations relating to the
registration, licensing, sale and administration of
medicines.
This is now an absolute requirement, and enforceable under
EU legislation, the UK Government's dispensation for
silicofluorides to be used to medicate dental caries is
without substance.
Douglas Cross - Environmental Analyst - EurProBiol, CBiol,
MIBiol, BSc also comments
'From 31st October '05 it will be illegal to to use
silicofluorides with the intent to medicate. Nomination of
silicofluorides by the UK government for fluoridation does
not constitute the issue of a marketing authorisation which
is mandatory for any substance used with the intent of
treating or preventing any medical condition.'
Professor Vyvyan Howard, toxico-pathologist in the Centre
for Molecular Bioscience at the University of Ulster said "I
am glad that there now appears to be a legal framework to
test the dubious practice of mass medication via the water
supply. There are so many unanswered questions relating to
the addition of hexafluorosilicic acid to the water supply,
particularly to the unborn and infants, that it is my
personal and professional opinion that the practice should
cease until the basic toxicological research required has
been performed".
Cllr. Susan King - Secretary of NAMAF is delighted that the
new EC legislation will bring to an end the deliberate
pollution of water supplies with hexafluorosilicic acid at
the rate of 1 part per million. For the last 60 years
fluoride has been condoned as the 'protected pollutant' with
unknown effects on our general health and the health of the
environment.
She added:
'There is now compelling evidence from the US that
fluorides are carcinogenic linking them with bone cancer
affecting young males. Water suppliers are not pharmacists!
Its totally unacceptable to add a known cumulative
protoplasmic poison to our tapwater. The fluoride dosing
equipment must be switched off now!'
For more information please contact:
Cllr. Susan King - Secretary NAMAF Mobile Tel: (07976)
255364
(01455) 828778 e mail : kings1955@aol.com
or Margaret Cooper - Co-ordinator National Register of
Children with Dental Fluorosis Mobile Tel: (07930) 810630 or
Tel: (0115) 9526548
1) Press release on first Consumer Council for Water meeting
- Birmingham Nov 1st 2005
Water supplies top the agenda at first CCWater meeting in
public
2) DWI - Press release on formation of Consumer Council for
Water - CCWater (replacing Water Voice.)
3) Doug Cross - analysis of implications of Codified
Pharmaceutical Directive in relation to EC definition of a
food.
The medicinal regulations are essentially unchanged from the
wording of the 2001 Codified Pharmaceuticals Directive.
However, the Food Directive has more recently been updated,
and now provides additional confirmation of the status of
'normal' drinking water, and therefore of fluoridated water
as a medicine. Remember, any ingestible substance is either
a food or a medicine.
Note the use of the phrase 'Water is ingested directly or
indirectly like other foods,' in section 6 of the Preamble.
This is also saying that water is a food, like any other.
The key ruling is the European Court of Justice's decision
that the intent to medicate renders any chemical so used a
medicinal substance.
----------------------------------------------------------
'REGULATION (EC) No 178/2002 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND
OF THE COUNCIL of 28 January 2002 laying down the general
principles and requirements of food law, establishing the
European Food Safety Authority and laying down procedures in
matters of food safety'
Article 2
Definition of 'food' For the purposes of this Regulation,
'food' (or 'foodstuff') means any substance or product,
whether processed, partially processed or unprocessed,
intended to be, or reasonably expected to be ingested by
humans. 'Food' includes drink, chewing gum and any
substance, including water, intentionally incorporated into
the food during its manufacture, preparation or treatment.
It includes water after the point of compliance as defined
in Article 6 of Directive 98/83/EC and without prejudice to
the requirements of Directives 80/778/EEC and 98/83/EC
Preamble (6) Water is ingested directly or indirectly
like other foods, thereby contributing to the overall
exposure of a consumer to ingested substances, including
chemical and microbiological contaminants. However, as the
quality of water intended for human consumption is already
controlled by Council Directives 80/778/EEC (5) and 98/83/EC
(6), it suffices to consider water after the point of
compliance referred to in Article 6 of Directive 98/83/EC.
---------------------------------------------------------
So, the quality of drinking water is covered by the EU food
and water regulations as long as it does not contain any
substance added with the intent to medicate any medical
condition. Therefore, the presence of calcium fluoride in
drinking water, as long as it is derived from natural
sources, does not alter the status of drinking water as a
food whose quality is regulated under the Water Quality
Regulations.
However, immediately any form of fluoride, whether 'natural'
or artificial, and including those fluorides that do have
medicinal Marketing Authorisations, is added to water with
the intent to prevent or reduce dental caries, that water
ceases to be a food and becomes a medicine.
Neither authorized fluorides (potassium and sodium fluoride)
nor any form of silicofluoride have Marketing Authorizations
under the EU or UK legislations. Their use with the intent
to medicate is therefore illegal - and absolutely so - from
the end of this month.
So any authority faced with this illegal administration of
an unlicensed medicine as from that date can, and should,
apply for an injunction against any water company actively
fluoridating its product, or proposing to do so. This action
can also be taken against any Strategic Health Authority
proposing to order a water company to carry out this illegal
act.
4) Latest news on Water Fluoridation - including
fluoride/bone cancer link
Fluoride Action Network - Prof Paul Connett - Chemistry
Dept, St Lawrence University, New York
5) TIME MAGAZINE Sunday, Oct. 16, 2005
Not in My Water Supply
It hardens teeth and prevents cavities, but 60 years after
it began, fluoridation is meeting new resistance By MARGOT
ROOSEVELT / BELLINGHAM
6) British Fluoridation Society
7) British Dental Association
www.bda-dentistry.org.uk/ - see Fluoride links page
for details of how to find York Review on Water
Fluoridation, Medical Research Council report on water
fluoridation etc
8) Fluoride Helpline - Manchester
9) DIRECTIVE 2004/27/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF
THE COUNCIL of 31 March 2004 amending Directive 2001/83/EC
on the Community code relating to medicinal products for
human use Article 1 Directive 2001/83/EC is hereby amended
as follows: 1) Article 1 shall be amended as follows:
(b) point 2 shall be replaced by the following:
'2. Medicinal product: (a) Any substance or
combination of substances presented as having properties for
treating or preventing disease in human beings; or (b) Any
substance or combination of substances which may be used in
or administered to human beings either with a view to
restoring, correcting or modifying physiological functions
by exerting a pharmacological, immunological or metabolic
action, or to making a medical diagnosis.'
