UKCAF website

Southern Water admits it does
not want to fluoridate its water.

UKCAF commentary persuades
Water Company to get down
off the fence.

Doug Cross, 9th August 2010

On Friday last week the UK water supplier, Southern Water, admitted for the first time that it would not be of its own choosing to add any chemical, including fluoride, “that is not directly necessary for the provision of drinking water” when processing drinking water for public use.

Company Secretary Kevin Hall admitted that it is only the anomalous pro-fluoridation provisions in the Water Act 2003 that can be used to force the company to comply with the recent ‘request’ - in reality, an order - by the South Central Stategic Health Authority (SCSHA) to fluoridate Southampton’s water. ( For press coverage of this, CLICK HERE.)

This remarkable admission was made almost immediately after we forwarded our commentary on the ‘Catch 22’ criminalising of the water sector to its company HQ last week. The company’s statement implicitly respects the majority view of the population of Southampton and district, but its assumption that it has no power to refuse the SHA’s ‘request’ is in fact incorrect.

Drinking water is classsed as a food, but once it is fluoridated it is no longer ‘drinking water’. It is instead a medicinal water, and as such is specifically excluded from regulation by the Drinking Water Inspectorate.

Back in 1983 Lord Jauncy ruled that fluoride, in whatever form it is purchased by the respondent (Mrs McColl) is a medicinal product that falls under the control of the Medicines Act.

No licence to manufacture pharmaceutical products.

Water Companies are not registered to manufacture or supply pharmaceutical products, and they cannot be compelled to manufacture a medicinal product by any attempted over-riding of the extremely strict legislation controlling the pharmaceutical sector, in both European and English law.

They certainly cannot be compelled to do so under the provisions of a highly defective sector of food law, since the legislation of medicines takes precedent over that covering foods in both legislative frameworks.

So a water company fluoridating its product might be vulnerable to accusations that it appeared to be supplying to the public a pharmaceutical product for the manufacture of which it had no relevant licence, that their product was itself unlicensed for supply to the public, and that the product was not supplied in compliance with the requirements of the medicinal products packaging and labelling regulations.

Shareholders could be forgiven if they were to take a somewhat unsympathetic view of their investments being put in jeopardy by such apparently risky activities!

No financial assistence for fluoridation from the NHS.

But even if a company was disposed to follow an SHA’s order to fluoridate, it would still face the concern of its shareholders for the safety of their investments.

The government has promised that all new fluoridation schemes will be financed by the NHS. But its supposed generocity with the public's money is ring-fenced by conditions that are increasingly unlikely to be met. For the hard truth is that the cash can only be supplied if SHAs,
'following consultations, find that the local community is in favour of the introduction of fluoridation schemes to improve the dental health.’

The requirement to prove that fluoridation ‘improves the dental health’ is itself an almost insuperable obstacle, but SHAs also have to show that the population actually approves of its proposed action.

South Central SHA has already been forced to retreat with a bloody nose after it arrogantly dismissed over-whelming local opposition to fluoridation.

Without a clear mandate, which may only be given after there has been complete and balanced disclosure of all of the facts about the uncertainty of the claimed ‘benefits’ and the certainty of the huge scale of adverse medical effects on the target population, the SHA can have no access to the NHS funding set aside for new fluoridation ventures.

And we are all by now well aware of the trouble that the SCSHA is in, over its refusal to accept the overwhelming public rejection of its proposed project to fluoridate the City of Southampton. The impending Judicial Review has effectively halted all new fluoridation projects in the UK until the hearing has been concluded.

So even if the SCSHA does attempt to enforce its 'request' to Southern Water to fluoridate, it cannot force it manufacture and supply a pharmaceutical product.

Nor can it provide the company with the necessary absolute assurance that State finance will be available to cover the costs - the company would have to risk its own money without any assurance that the investment would be secure.

Southern Water’s lawyers need to face the hard facts - the SHA cannot enforce the fluoridation legislation in the face of the clear prohibition on the supply of a medicinal water without the relevant medicinal product authorisation.

The company needs to make a stand and challenge the fluoridation legislation threatening its shareholders' investments, right the way through the Courts if necessary.

After all, every single person in the City is one of their customers, and relies entirely on the company as its sole service provider for the product that the law of England stipulates must be supplied to any householder who requests it.

Fluoridated water is NOT drinking water, and the SHA has no authority to demand that the company should supply it, instead of the product actually specified.