UKCAF website

British and Irish Governments add banned chemical to drinking water

Fluoridated water illegal since January 2010

Doug Cross 30th October 2010

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The British and Irish governments continue to insist that fluoridated water is a food, and covered by the drinking water regulations. Whilst this argument is wrong - it's a medicine - these governments now face another legal challenge if they continue to insist that fluoridation provides a supplementary source of the mineral fluoride. The use of fluorosilicates in foods for this purpose is now completely banned thoughout Europe!

In an update of the European legislation on vitamins and minerals in foods, the use of unorthodox source materials has been phased out. Member States wishing to continue to use unregistered source materials for minerals had until January 2010 to submit dossiers for their scrutiny by the Commission - but no such dossier was submitted for either the fluorosilicic acid or its sodium salt nominated for use in water fluoridation.

Their continued use after 19th January this year was therefore illegal.

Regulation 1925/2006 states that only those source substances listed in Annex II for minerals listed in Annex I may be used when adding minerals to foods. But Member States had a period in which they could either phase them out or else apply for permission to continue their use.

Article 17 states that

By way of derogation from Article 3(1) and until 19 January 2014, Member States may allow in their territory the use of vitamins and minerals not listed in Annex I, or in forms not listed in Annex II, provided that:
(a) the substance in question is used for addition to foods marketed in the Community on 19 January 2007; and
(b) the Authority has not given an unfavourable opinion in respect of the use of that substance, or its use in that form, in the manufacture of food, on the basis of a dossier supporting use of the substance in question to be submitted to the Commission by the Member State not later than 19 January 2010.

Annex I lists fluoride as a 'mineral' (against all rational and scientific evidence that it has no nutritive function whatsoever.) Annex II lists sodium and potassium fluoride as the only permissible source materials for fluoride added to foods. No fluorosilicates are allowed as the source of fluoride in foods.

Whilst fluorosilicates were in use in both Britain and Ireland in January 2007, the Community has not given an unfavourable report of their use, since no application was ever submitted by these two rogue Member States.

We thoroughly reject the ill-founded argument that flooridated water is a food - it is converted to a medicinal product at the water treatment works, and its regulation as a medicine is established by the decision of the European Court on the classification of functional drinks, in the case of Warenvertriebs and Orthica.

(The British government claims that these rules do not apply, 'because water is not a food until it emerges from the customer's tap'. This reveals how desperate have the irrational arguments of the Health Police become - they are alleging the truly miraculous transformation of a medicine to a human food, simply by passing ot through a kitchen appliance!)

But if the British and Irish Authorities wish to follow that route anyway, and insist that this product is a food, then these Regulations put the final cap on their continued attempt to inflict this discredited product on the public.

The use of these nominated substances is not compatible either by reference to thelist of permitted substances or by any relevant derogation. But even if their use were permissible, these States would only be able to continue to use them until 19th January 2014, when they would finally have to be abandoned anyway.

As from 19th January 2010, the last apparent legal loophole for the continued use of fluorosilicates to fluoridated water was closed. Those who still provide consumers with this product appear to be vulnerable to a charge of being in breach of the food legislation, and would be prudent if they stopped supplying it immediately.

In the coming two weeks, the British government's attempts to conceal the medical effects of the exposure of over 20,000 members of the public to drinking water accidentally contaminated with aluminium sulphate in North Cornwall back in 1988 will finally be subject to public scrutiny.

So it is ironic that the continued deliberate contamination of public water supplies to 6 million people in the UK with an even more toxic chemical should be so vigorously promoted, despite the clear prohibition on the use of these substances, and of the evidence of the consequential damage that ensues.

The publishing of this Regulation by the EC should at last provide a sound basis for an effective challenge to fluoridation that will finally bring this charade to an end.

To access the correspondence and commentaries associated with this little confrontation, Click on the following links:
Our original letter to Commissioner Dalli

The SANCO reply to our letter

My rebuttal of the SANCO response