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22nd July 2010

The Lytle S Adams Memorial Award

This month's recipient -
Dr Alfred P Southwick
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The only Internet website providing
in-depth, easy-to-read and up-to-date
analyses on recent developments
in water fluoridation.


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Australian water company backs off over fluoridation.


A private action in the NSW Land and Environment Court has forced Rous Water to suspend tendering for new fluoridation plants.

In a significant development in the fight to stop the fluoridation of water supplies provided from the Knockrow, Corndale, Dorroughby, Clunes and Marom Creek water treatment works, in New South Wales, Rous Water Authority has been advised by its lawyers not to proceed with the acceptance of tenders for the construction of the new plants.

Rous Water’s technical services director, Wayne Franklin, told the local Council that it would be unwise to proceed with the project until the New South Wales Land and Environment Court has decided on the action brought by Mr Al Oshlack, a resident of Lismore, on the grounds that the Authority has not considered the full environmental issues raised by the production and distribution of fluoridated water.

NSW law specifically states that in this Court ‘environment’ is regarded as including people. Therefore any activity - such as the addition of ‘fluoride’ to drinking water - that may be capable of causing adverse effects on people must be subject to a detailed assessment of the environmental risks involved.

I have recently submitted a detailed Affidavit to the Court, detailing the deliberate fraudulent under-reporting of the extent of dental fluorosis that inevitably results from water fluoridation, and of the hidden financial costs to sufferers

of fluorosis. This hard-hitting and fully documented Affidavit is confidential to the Court, but will be published once it has the protection of a Court document.

In this case, there is a remarkable parallel to the scandalous under-estimation of the costs of implementing a new fluoridation project on which South Central Strategic Health Authority attempted to rely, over the notorious Southampton fiasco here in the UK. As Mr Oshlack has pointed out, the costs that the NSW Health Authority had accepted were far less than the real costs of the development.

Rous Water is still under a legal obligation to fluoridate its water, much as a British water undertaker would be bound to comply with an order (sorry, ‘request’!) to fluoridate by a SHA. But in very similar fashion to UK companies, it could also be caught between two conflicting sets of legislation if the Land and Environment Court finds that the practice poses unacceptable risks to that confoundedly difficult and complex component of the environment - the people who actually live there!

I am waiting to see the outcome of this new legal challenge to the lunatic fringe’s fluoridation ambitions with great interest.

For the latest news from Oz, CLICK HERE

9th July 2010

SCHER's verdict on water fluoridation
'A crude measure of systemic fluoride treatment . . .
without a detectable threshold for dental
and bone damage.'

Doug Cross

In a breakthrough review of the health risks of water fluoridation, the EU’s Scientific Committee on Health and Environmental Risks (SCHER) has now described the practice as
‘a rather poor and crude measure of systemic fluoride treatment, without a detectable threshold for dental and bone damage’.
Comparing water fluoridation with conventional preventive dental treatments, it dismisses the practice as being of little relevance, saying
No obvious advantage appears in favour of water fluoridation as compared with topical application of fluoride . . . water fluoridation plays a relatively minor role in the improved dental health.

The release of this study poses three challenges to the continuation of water fluoridation that, taken together, form an incontestable case for its termination.

Firstly, SCHER concluded that the evidence that it actually works is extremely weak. And it decided this despite ignoring the formidable published evidence (that was sent directly to the Committee) that the supposedly reduced rates of dental decay in children drinking the product disappear entirely once the effect of fluoride in delaying the eruption of children’s teeth is taken into account.

Secondly, it noted that there appears to be no threshold concentration of fluoride in drinking water below which no adverse effects can be detected:
Systemic exposure to fluoride in drinking water is associated with an increased risk of dental and bone fluorosis in a dose-response manner without a detectable threshold.
If there is no detectable threshold for the onset of abnormal bone and dental conditions, then there is absolutely no safety margin protecting vulnerable members of the public - any level of artificial fluoridation

causes medical damage to at least some of those people forced to consume the product.

And in a action that will inevitably confound pro-fluoridation fanatics, this conclusion was based on evidence published ten years ago, by the very same authority on fluoridation that they habitually misquote, the York Review itself.

Finally, SCHER accepted that fluoridation is indeed a medicinal intervention. This confirms the argument that I have been voicing for the past ten years - that in law this practice is a medicinal intervention, and is therefore subject to control under the EC Medicines Directive and English medicinal law.

This view was endorsed by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg last year, when he spoke to people in Hampshire on the threat to fluoridate Southampton’s water supply. As an unlicensed medicine, it must be subject to regulation and removed from the public water supplies in fluoridated areas of England immediately.

The SCHER report has many flaws and is provisional - a ‘pre-Consultation’ document, subject to public comment. But the Committee’s failure to recognise the significance of the statistical fraud on which the single supposed ‘benefit’ of the practice rests merely emphasises that there is now no basis for its continuation. Fluoridation has no role whatever in public health protection - indeed, it is the cause of widespread medical damage in those communities subjected to this illegal form of public medication

The case for its continuation has now been comprehensively demolished by an independent panel of experts. It is now time for the lawyers to move in, to advise those many thousands who have been damaged by this fraudulent practice on who to look to for compensation for the medical damage that they have experienced.

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9th July 2010

Criminalising the water sector.

Why the English fluoridation legislation
must be repealed
Doug Cross

The UK's new government’s invitation to the public to nominate unnecessary or oppressive laws that should be repealed has generated an immediate and substantial response - ‘Repeal fluoridation laws, now!’ Until this anomaly is removed, water companies are, in effect, being criminalised in a ‘Catch 22’ situation whereby they may be liable to prosecution if they refuse to obey an order to fluoridate their water, but are in violation of other legislation if they do comply

The legislation that permits fluoridation is incompatible with preexisting medicinal legislation. As fluoridated water is not ‘water for human consumption’, but a medicinal water, it is excluded from regulation under the Drinking Water Directive. Medicinal waters must be exclusively controlled as medicines, an interpretation emphasised by the decision of Lord Jauncy in 1983 that ‘fluoride, in whatever form it is purchased by the respondent’ is a medicine.

In a more recent ruling on ‘functional drinks by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in 2005 the Court specifically stated that the requirement to regulate such products as medicines applied to ‘near-water drinks with added minerals.' This is a precise description of fluoridated water; it is promoted as having medicinal properties, and in food law fluoride is classed as a ‘mineral’. The opinion incessantly repeated by the regulator of medicines, the MHRA, that the ECJ ruling does not apply to this product suggests a level of deliberate perversity that is entirely unacceptable in public office.

What the MHRA fails to diclose is that the ECJ emphasised that national regulators in Member States have no authority to exercise their discretion in classifying such functional drinks as medicines. The rulings of the Court must be implemented into national legislation. The MHRA’s opinion has no legal standing, and it has no option - it must regulate fluoridated water as a medicine.

Damned if they do fluoridate, damned if they don’t.

So where does this leave the water companies? Well, their position is decidedly precarious because, through the incompetence of Parliament, water companies now face prosecution regardless of whether or not they comply with an order to fluoridate. The industry cannot continue to sit on the fence pretending that the legal dispute over the legitimacy of the practice is not an issue for them or their shareholders. So I will first examine the position of a water company that does not currently supply fluoridated water, but that might be about to be ordered to do so.

The Water Act of 2003 gave Health Authorities the power to order companies to fluoridate their product; if they refuse then they are liable to criminal proceedings. So far that seems perfectly clear and simple. But if they do obey such an order, they then could still be accused of committing a criminal offence, but this time under the English food or medicinal legislation.

Food or medicine?

The fundamental question that water companies need to resolve is this - what is the legal status of the ‘fluoride’ that they may be ordered to add to their product? If, as the MHRA claims, fluoridated water is a food and not a medicine, then the product must comply with the legislation governing foodstuffs, since drinking water is regarded as a food once it emerges from the consumers’ taps.

Any fluoride that is not marketed in dose form as a food supplement, but is deliberately added to a food, can only be classified as a food additive. The source materials for all food additives are precisely defined and strictly regulated - the only permissible sources of fluoride deliberately added to foods are sodium and potassium fluoride.

Irrespective of the English legislation nominating fluorosilicates for fluoridating water, they are not authorised sources of fluoride as a food additive. If fluoridated water is indeed a food, as the MHRA claims, then their use for this purpose in drinking water violates the food legislation, and companies could be charged with manufacturing a product using an unauthorised chemical as the source for a food additive.

Could water companies avoid potential prosecution under food law? Yes - but again there’s a catch. Any ingestible product is either a food or a medicine (all other substances, such as illegal drugs, poisons and similar substances, are classed as non-ingestible). So the threat of prosecution under the food laws could be avoided by accepting that this product is in fact medicinal

But if this is so, then the refusal of the MHRA to issue the mandatory medicinal licence means that water companies could then be charged with placing on the market a medicinal product for which no licence has been issued, itself a serious criminal offence.

The MHRA - acting as judge and jury.

The reason that this flagrant disregard of medicinal law by the regulator has not yet been challenged in the Courts is, of course, that the MHRA is itself the enforcer of medicinal law.

Its refusal to take appropriate action reveals its own complicity with the Department of Health in promoting the use of an unlicensed medicinal product that is in fact so unreliable and ineffective that no such license could ever properly be issued.

In failing to take appropriate action the MHRA is now defying both English and European law. It acts as judge and jury in its own court, despite the fact that, as the ECJ ruled, it actually has no authority to exercise any discretion in the matter.

Knock-on effects - contaminating export products.

But this is not the limit of the legal quagmire into which the MHRA has descended, and into which it would inevitably drag water companies if they were to comply with an order to fluoridate their product. Under the food safety and hygiene legislation, water used in the preparation or manufacture of foodstuffs must be the form of water that is regulated under the drinking water regulations.

But the wording of the drinking water regulations leads to the inevitable conclusion that, as a medicinal product, fluoridated water is not ‘potable water’ or ‘water for human consumption’. Its use in preparing foods is therefore prohibited.

And if, despite this, fluoridated water is used for this purpose, then the ECJ ruling also states that food products made with a medicinal water (a ‘functional drink’) may only be exported to other Member States of the EU if they are accompanied by a relevant medicinal licence.

Violating the food product labelling requirements.

All manufactured foods must provide a list of ingredients on their packaging. The drinking water regulations make it clear that the description ‘water’ refers only to ‘water for human consumption’. So if the label of a food manufactured in a fluoridated area of England and using the municipal water supply states in its list of ingredients that it includes ‘water’, then the manufacturer could be charged with violating the food law by making a false declaration of its contents.

So food processors and manufacturers could, in theory at least, bring actions against a water company that decides to fluoridates its product on the order of a Health Authority, arguing that the company had supplied a product that, like the MHRA and the spurious laws that condone the practice of water fluoridation, is not fit for purpose.

If market outlets in the EU decide to place an embargo on imported foods prepared in the UK, on the grounds that they could have been manufactured using a medicinal water, the potential commercial implications for the exporters could be very severe. In heavily fluoridated Australia the prospect of a potential trade embargo on processed food exports to the EU for this reason is already causing consternation, as the full implications of this EC ruling on its export sector sink in.

The Government’s offer of indemnity - not worth the paper it’s written on.
In the Water Industry Act of 1991 the government agree to provide indemnity to water companies against third party claims that might arise from fluoridation, primarily because of the concern that claims might be initiated by the public for medical damages. But this indemnity is by no means guaranteed, and is entirely at the discretion of the Secretary of State.

Indemnity would not prevent the prosecution or even the conviction of a water company in such cases, but the government - or rather, the taxpayer - would reimburse the company for any financial penalties that might be imposed by a Court. The question then becomes, should taxpayers be liable for penalties imposed on water companies for any unlawful activities that they might be forced to engage in under this gimcrack and irrational legislation?

But this indemnity is not available for the potential violations of food and medicinal law that I have outlined above - there can be no indemnity for a criminal act. So companies that have already been fluoridating their product voluntarily may need to reappraise their position; they were not forced to do so by a Health Authority, so a defence of involuntary criminalisation by the State would not appear to be available.

Were the MHRA forced to recognise that fluoridated water is a medicinal product, companies would immediately have to stop supplying it to the public, not only because it has no marketing authorization but also for the apparently prosaic reason that a medicine may only be supplied if it is in a container!

The incompatibility of the fluoridation legislation with both food and medicinal legislation results in the unavoidable criminalisation of the water industry. There is no scope for further evasion by the government - since medicinal law takes priority when it applies also to foods, all legislation that permits or regulates fluoridation must now be removed from the statute book, to allow the water sector to operate in an unambiguous and rational environment.

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New Resource Documents

Judicial Review of 'Consultation'

Human Rights, Civil Liberties and Fluoridation


The argument that fluoridation should be imposed because 'it is unethical to deprive children of the right to receive the benefits of fluoride' is patently ridiculous, yet public health authorities and water providers continue to be fooled by this claptrap. Treating fluoridation as a Civil Liberty issue violates Human Rights legislation, but support has recently come from an unexpected direction.

READ ON

Consultation: an issue that will resonate throughout the framework of English law.
How widely will the current Judicial Review examine the implications of the Southampton challenge?

A year ago South Central Strategic Health Authority arrogantly rejected the overwhelming public opposition to fluoridation of Southampton City's water supply, on the grounds that the public is too ignorant to hold a valid opinion! Predictably, this resulted in a legal challenge to the SHA's interpretation of the law on consultation on fluoridation. But did the lawyers really realise the implications of this action - does 'consult' always have the same meaning in English Law?

This issue won't simply die down and go away. The British Government has had to bite the bullet in the last few years and admit that the people must be consulted when it plans to disrupt their lives, and consultation is becoming an almost universal requirement. But actually allowing public opinion, or even expert advice (as British Home Sectretary Alan Johnson's dismissal of drugs adviser Prof David Nutt recently showed) to influence policy is another matter entirely.

The government's plan to convert the Cumbrian coastline into Britains' 'Nuclear Dustbin' - sorry, 'Energy Coast'! - is generating almost universal fury over the grotesque fashion in which the 'consultation' process is being mishandled here in the North-West. Just like to alleged 'benefits' in the fluoridation controversy, the claimed benefits of the proposal to site an unspecified number of nuclear reactors along the border of the Lake District National Park are being grossly inflated whilst the damage that will result is never mentioned.

If the Judge in the Southampton Hearing decides that 'consult' means that the public must take an active and effective role in deciding policy, then this could dramatically reduce the power of politicians and their sycophantic Civil Servants to impose their wishes on the nation. So the Southampton fluoridation Judicial Review may be of far greater significance than you, the fluoride pushers and even the lawyers realise. We await the outcome of this storm in a teacup with enormous interest - it could just be the precursor for a legal tsunami !

Alumino-fluoride complexes - is modern water treatment linked with the epidemic of dementia?


Fluoridating water containing even traces of aluminium may pose a greater health risk than water providers realise. Alumino-fluorides formed at the low pH of the human stomach are able to pass into the bloodstream and brain cells, where aluminium has been found to be associated with some instances of the formation of the beta-amyloid plaque characteristic of Alzheimer's Disease. Is this linked to the rapid rise in AD in developed countries?

READ ON

The Ombudsman and the MHRA

The Ombudsman seems reluctant to take on the Medicines Regulator - so is there a case for accusing the MHRA of maladministration?

The MHRA does not have the power to arbitarily to refuse to recognise the medicinal classification of this product, and it is acting outside its own authority. This is clearly maladministration. The question then becomes, can the Ombudsman be forced to reconsider her decision not to procede with an investigation.

UKCAF has therefore written to her to explain the relevance of the European court decision which is enforceable in all Member States of the EU, and to demand that she examines the actions of our wayward Regulator of Medicines.

READ ON

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Recent news - get up to date with our significant news here!

Making a difference
UKCAF may be a small organisation - but we have been hitting well above our weight. Here's what we have achieved in the last couple of years.


June-July 2008 - UKCAF challenged Isle of Man plans to impose fluoridation, exposing the safety hazards of fluorosilicic acid on small island, and demanding the application of Manx law to prohibit use of unlicensed medicines.
September 2008 - We complained to the UK Advertising Standards Authority re illegal pro-fluoridation advertisements in Hampshire newspaper - ASA planned to dismiss complaint but hastily recanted on receipt of UKCAF's challenge, and hasn't replied since!
October 2009 - In a head-to-head battle with BFS and its associates for 'hearts and mind' before Hampshire County Council, we won hands down!
November 2008 - UKCAF reported a senior BFS member to General Dental Council for misconduct - legal action taken by third party. We also referr3ed the North West Fluoridation Evaluation Group's Report to NHS Counter Fraud Division, which refused to disclose its findings! We also assisted Kathy Sinnott MEP to present the case against fluoridation in Limerick, Republic of Irelend.

February 2009 - We gleefully publicised Queensland Premier Anna Bligh's agreement to pay medical compensation for any fluoride-induced damages - the 'Blair Memorandum' became an instant best seller!
March 2009 - UKCAF issued a joint Press Release with the Alliance for Natural Health and VOICE Ireland on illegality of fluorophosphate as a food additive; Doug advised Wayne Evans on how to conduct his trial in Coffs Harbour, Australia - and despite entering a 'guilty' plea, Wayne was dismissed without a conviction!
May 2009 - Doug published his analysis of the European Court ruling on the regulation of functional drinks as medicines - another BEST SELLER - so far over 8,000 downloads and multiple copies on other web pages.
June 2009 - We forced the UK's Advertising Standards Authority to drop a trumped-up complaint against us by the BFS, who objected to our informaton sheets exposing the appalling state of teeth with dental fluorosis - a 'tit-for-tat' grudge fight that went badly wrong (shouldn't try fighting above their own league!)
June 2009 - We revealed Secretary of State Andy Burnham's crepuscular role as Vice President of the BFS - Burnham forced to hastily leave the BFS, to prevent 'a potential conflict of interest' !
July 2009 - UKCAF exposed fraudulent claims that 'Southampton children have some of worst teeth in the country' - in fact they are better than those of kiids in Birmingham !
August 2009 - Doug's legal analysis of UK and EU law on medicines helped solicitors to successfully apply for a publicly funded Judicial Review of the fluoridation consultation in Southampton.
September 2009 - The Australian Trade Association was running around the EU trying to clarify a possible trade embargo on Australian processed foods made with fluoride, as the result of our May publication on functional drinks.
October 2009 - Doug collaborated with Caroline Lucas MEP to formally demand the Parliamentary and Health Ombudsman to investigate the UK Medicines Regulator for maladministration over the MHRA's refusal to regulate fluoride as a medicinal product.
November 2009 - Doug challenged the EU SCHER Committee on its competence to investigate the medical effects of fluoridation.
February 2010 - We again challenged EU Commissioners on their impartiality over the regulation of medicines; Doug submitted arguments on the effects of novel forms of fluoride in the environment, to Rous Water, Australia.
March 2010 - Doug opened the debate on the implications of the contamination of the environment by novel and highly bioavailable sources of fluorinated chemicals in Australia, including the discovery of the synthesis of highly toxic fluoroactetate in human food crops.
June 2010 - A hearing has been scheduled in the New South Wales Land and Environment Court, on the environmental threats to human health of the proposed fluoridation of Coff's Harbour water supply by Rous Water. Doug has submitted an Affidavit on behalf of the Applicant, exposing the fraudulent misuse of dental health statistics in the arguments for fluoridation.
July 2010 - Following the publication of Doug's analysis of the implications of the European Court of Justice ruling on 'functional drinks', the European Court and the European Commission finally got around to checking out the article on this web site - five times in three days! Someone up there in the European Court is begining to get nervous!

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And finally - in December 2009 the UK's Society of Biology elected Doug as a Fellow of the Society, in recognition for his outstanding work in the futherance of Biology in a long and productive career in Environmental Forensics.

If we can do all this - SO CAN YOU!

Backing off? The Ombudsman appears reluctant to tackle the MHRA.


In May last year we reported that the UK Medicines Regulator, the MHRA, had been accused of maladministration:-

"There can be no more damning evidence of the deliberate and politically-influenced improper exercise of (the MHRA's) regulatory function. The ECJ ruling MUST be enforced in every member state - failing to do so for the past four years appears to constitute very serious maladministration, and demands an immediate Inquiry."

Yet the battle still rages on, with the MHRA using every tactic in the book to try to evade its responsibility to protect the public from illegal medicines. For the latest commentary,


CLICK HERE

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