UKCAF website

Doug Cross, 9th June 2009

Southampton anti-fluoridation pressure group Hampshire Against Fluoridation today travelled to London to present a petition to the Dear Leader at Number 10, demanding that the plan to fluoridate the public water supplies in Southampton be scrapped.

But the chances of getting a sympathetic hearing seem vanishingly small. 'Action Man' Brown will, of course, immediately hand on any such irritating petition to his trusty Secretary of State for Health, for him to deal with as he sees fit. And by a delicious stroke of irony, the man now in charge of safeguarding the nation's health is none other than Andy Burnham MP, so the prospect of getting any help from that quarter appear to be vanishingly small.

Why? Well Mr Burnham has a somewhat curious history over fluoridation. He it was who was largely responsible for the dramatically incompetent fluoridation section of the 2003 Water Act, in which Strategic Health Authorities were at last given the power to order private water companies to fluoridate their product.

But in hastily pushing through this hugely controversial piece of legislation, it seems to have escaped the notice of those beavering away with their quills and parchments that there were actually rather a lot of other pre-existing laws that were relevant and needed to be taken into account. Some would even need to be repealed if fluoridation were to be cloaked in the legal respectability that the fluoride fanatics have craved for so many years.

Unfortunately, someone screwed up, and they left the 1968 Medicines Act on the statute books!

Fitness to practice?
But Mr Burnham's support of the fluoride pushers goes much deeper than the Water Act. For, in his desperation to pull the country together, the Prime Minioster has actually appointed a man to head the national medicial services who was the Vice-President of the British Fluoridation Society (BFS), the Flat Earth Society of medicine. For all we know, he may still hold that exalted post (our Chief Mole in the BFS is unable to confirm this) but it's hard to tell, now that the BFS's web site has suddenly been sanitised, and is remarkably reluctant to tell us who's who in their merry band. So is it really likely that the New Health Secretary will take any notice whatever of a couple of dozen people with a list of names of those Southampton folk who find one of his pet schemes so distasteful and oppressive?

Surely, you might say, all that's behind him now? After all, being given the top plum in the Health Service pudding is so important a job that as Secretary of State he will put all past prejudice aside, and take a totally neutral stand on such an important issue? Well, there are just a few other things that you need to be aware of whilst you are making up your own mind on this.

Your money in their hands
For many years the BFS has been spoon-fed taxpayers' money from the Treasury to keep the Society afloat. In return, it has performed stalwart service to the Department of Health, acting as its undercover fluoride propaganda outfit in the battle for Britain's minds and teeth. It has actually received over £1 million of our cash over the years to promote the supposed medical benefits of fluoridation.

So it is important to remember that, regardless of whether you or anyone else considers fluoridated water to be a medicine or a food, it is a criminal offence to claim that either an unlicensed medicine or a food has medicinal properties.

Promoting fluoridated water as a preventitive measure to stop tooth decay remains illegal because that other happy band of collaborators, the MHRA, has refused to award the product a medicinal licence. The offence can carry both a fine and up to two years inside.

You might well ask, why has no-one been prosecuted for this so far? Please be sensible - why would the State jail anyone for promoting official State health policies?

But a couple of years ago we asked, is it acceptable that public funds should be given to an organisation that has been perhaps a little too enthusiastic with its promotion of an unlicensed medicine? After a pompous statement that the Government did not consider it necessary to check up on the legality of the activities of those to whom it paid our money, last year the Department of Health finally had to face the growing irritation of MPs, and stopped funding of BFS. So was this the end of the BFS? Well, not quite - read on.

A foot in the (back) door?
The confiscation of its pocket money caused the BFS considerable anguish, and it uprated its recruitment of new members from within the NHS itself. Now we learn that it has recently moved to a new office, at the premises of the NHS's Ashton, Leigh and Wigan Primary Care Trust. It is.of course, entirely coincidental that this is the same NHS Trust that covers the patch (Leigh in Lancashire) where the new Health Secretary has his Parliamentary constituency. Mr Burnham, as you are well aware, was only appointed to his new post last week.

But this is the same PCT that hosted the preparation of a Feasibility Study attempting to justify the imposition of fluoridation across the entire North West of the country. The excruciatingly biased North West Fluoridation Evaluations group's Feasibility Study was prepared by a dozen Health Service stalwarts, who claimed to have approached their work 'from a position of neutrality over fluoridation'.

Yet the Group's former Manager, the redoubtable fluoride advocate, Mr Guy Harkin, failed to reveal that he and half of his team were either members or very close associates of the BFS - hardly convincing proof of the group's 'neutrality'! After a very long delay in replying, the Fraud Squad has just refused to tell us the result of its investigation into this document and that other notorious pro-fluoride propaganda, the South Central SHA's glossy Consultation brochure produced for the Southampton fluoridation crusade. Surprised?

Evading the will of Parliament?
It might be thought a little odd that, having had its public funding withdrawn by Parliament, the BFS should now have got its toes cosily under the table of the very same NHS Trust that helped fund and produce such a disgracefully biased pro-fluoridation study - one that is now peddled around Councils in the Region to try to persuade them and PCTs that fluoridation is the best thing in dentistry since - well, mercury fillings.

As one of our contacts said, " Do they pay rent?"
Another said, "You couldn't make this up if you tried!"

So, is the BFS now receiving some sort of back-door benefit-in-kind from the NHS, in apparent defiance of Parliament's wish that all public funding to this happy band of fluoride fanatics should cease? We don't know - but we do know some people who would greatly like to know. Perhaps Mr Burnham can tell us just what is going on on his own doorstep. But for now, don't hold your breath over the Southampton petition.

http://www.ukcaf.org/hampshire_goes_to_no10.html
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