When the Irish health minister banned smoking in the workplace in March 2004, he was rightly praised for protecting people from pollutants in tobacco smoke, many of which have long been considered harmful. Indeed so well was this decision received and still is, even among many smokers, there were several calls for the health minister to be proposed for the Nobel Prize. In subsequent international recognition, Ireland’s example has since been followed by Scotland, and seriously contemplated in other European countries as well.
Whereas Ireland took the lead in combatting pollution of workplace air, when it comes to its water there is a different picture entirely. Ireland has been repeatedly criticised by the EU for having the worst water pollution record in Europe. Firstly, intensive farming and poor sewage treatment have created serious problems for groundwater in many areas, prompting the EU Commission once again this year to accuse the government of foot-dragging, even after repeated warnings to clean up our rivers and lakes.Today, many farmers are still in breach of the EU Nitrates Directive and with an election due next year, the government seems ready to employ every device possible to avoid bringing farmers into line to protect the nation’s groundwater.
As for that portion of water extracted from these same lakes and rivers for consumers to drink, its quality is monitored each year by Ireland’s Environmental Protection Agency (the E.P.A.) Each year it reports on how water often fails on microbiological contamination; bacteria emanating from farming and inadequate municipal and domestic sewage treatment. Another regular criticism is of the excessive aluminium in drinking water. Yet the EPA never criticises another pollutant: fluoride, despite its occurrence in hundreds of public water supplies. Since Europe’s Scientific Committee on Toxicity, Eco-toxicity and the Environment has grouped fluoride along with lead and nitrates as a pollutant this omission is curious. While lead and nitrates occur unintentionally either as a result of agriculture or from old lead piping which has not yet been replaced, the fluoride present in Irish water is a completely different story. Since virtually all Ireland’s fresh water streams, rivers and lakes and groundwater are free from this particular pollutant, its presence in Irish drinking water is particularly bizarre.
Remarkbly, fluoride in Irish drinking water is deliberately added, on the orders of the health minister, dating from a law passed forty-five years ago. This effectively makes the government by far the largest polluter of drinking water in Ireland! How such large-scale pollution escapes critical comment by the agency that is supposed to monitor drinking water quality for consumers is an enduring national scandal.
Every day nine billion litres of drinking water are fluoridated by over six hundred water supplies up and down the country. This outdated but compulsory policy involves a chemical being added to drinking water that is an industrial waste: Hydrofluorosilicic Acid. Not only is fluoride classed as a hazardous chemical, requiring special safety procedures but it also contains many toxic contaminants such as Lead, Arsenic, Chromium and Uranium. All of of these are carcinogenic or neuro-toxic.
Two other facts about this pollutant give cause for further concern. First, The European Environment Commissioner admitted in 2000 that the Fluoride chemical had never been toxicologically tested in Europe. It was no surprise therefore in 2001 that it failed a European safety vote.
Second, the World Health Organization (W.H.O.), which claims authority in all matters of drinking water health and safety, has not tested this pollutant either. At the EU Drinking Water Seminar in October 2003, the W.H.O. promised to publish a risk assessment of Hydrofluorosilicic Acid in early 2004. Over two years later, the WHO has still published nothing.
This Fluoride pollutant in Ireland’s drinking water is 'poisoning' four teenagers in ten, reflecting an eightfold increase in dental fluorosis since 1984. While Irish Dentists Opposing Fluoridation (www.idof.net) grows steadily with over a hundred and twenty dentists now declaring their opposition, the spin from the Irish Government continues to claim that this pollutant in drinking water is safe. Given the evidence of harm to our own children and the failure of the regulators in both the E.U. and the W.H.O. to take action on what can only be termed an ongoing scandal, there is a duty on N.G.O.s like VOICE of Irish Concern for the Environment and other campaigners to highlight these Irish contradictions. Then, however many countries follow the Irish lead on protecting workplace air from tobacco smoke, at least they will be alerted to the dangers of their drinking water being polluted by Fluoride, as in Ireland.
Robert Pocock lives in Dun Laoghaire and runs VOICE’s ‘Stop Fluoridation’ campaign. |
