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THE FLUORIDE ACTION NETWORK
FAN Bulletin #527: British Fluoridation Society.
March 16, 2006.
Dear All,
Over the last few days we have learned three things about the British
Fluoridation Society:
1) It continues to propagate the false information that Chester Douglas's data
shows no relationship between osteosarcoma and fluoridation even though his own
graduate student's PhD thesis showed exactly the opposite. Here is a quote from
their web page which is linked on the BBC's web page < http://www.bbc.co.uk/wear/content/articles/2006/01/31/fluoride_debate_feature.shtml>.
It is bad enough that Douglass concealed this information from the BFS in
November 2002, but it is even worse that the BFS continues to hide
the revelations of Douglass's coverup today even though they first appeared in
The Observer in June 2005. If they missed this report in a British newspaper (
i.e. right under their noses) then surely someone must have informed them about
reports in the Washington Post (July 13,2005); Associated Press (July 13, 2005)
and Wall Street Journal (July 23, 2005). In fact, it is very
unlikely that Professor Michael Lennon remained ignorant of this scandal since
he was in Chicago on July 13 when the story
broke big time in the US.
A reputable scientific organization would have made a correction immediately
its officers heard about this deception, but they have not done so.
Here is the quote, which is currently misleading the British public:
"Professor Chester Douglass of Harvard University presented preliminary
results, as yet unpublished, from that and a separate National Cancer Institute
study by Hoover et al, at a symposium held at the Royal College of Physicians,
London, in November 2002. These two large casecontrol studies showed no
association between fluoride exposure and osteosarcoma."
http://www.bfsweb.org/One%20in%20a%20million/4%20general%20health.pdf
2) The BFS continue to receive enormous sums of money (currently nearly
$200,000 a year) from the British taxpayer. It is hard to understand why they
receive this money. I am sure that their members would say for
'"educational" purposes, but what is clear from the above is that the
BFS is not an educational organization but a blatant propagandist outfit. Below
we have printed a breakdown of the contributions they have received from the
British government, going back to the 1970s.
3) The BFS yesterday (March 15) put out an action alert calling on "civil
society organisations" to lobby European parliamentarians to oppose
proposed amendments on regulations pertaining to food
additives, which would forbid the addition of fluoride to food or
water. Specifically amendment 24 calls for the deletion of fluoride as a food
additive and gives as justification, "fluoride should be added to toothpaste
not food or water."
http://www.europarl.eu.int/meetdocs/2004_2009/documents/am/602/602020/602020en.pdf.
This is the BFS alert:
British Fluoridation Society calls for allowing the addition of fluorides to
foods
Ahead of the vote by the Environment, Food Safety and Public health Committee
of the European Parliament on a regulation on Food Additives scheduled on the
20 -21 March 2006, the British Fluoridation Society calls for a strong stance
to allow the addition of fluorides to foods.
According to the BFS, various amendments (23 and 24) if accepted, would
prohibit the addition of fluorides to food and water.
The BFS argues that exposure to fluoride has been one of the main factors
contributing to the widespread improvement of oral health. However, oral health
inequalities exist between and within EU Member States. Besides, dietary
fluoride intake plays a major role in the prevention of dental caries.
Therefore the BFS urges civil society organisations to lobby actively Members
of the European Parliament in order to encourage them to reject the proposed
amendments.
Shall you want to do so, please contact Sheila Jones in order to receive
background materials. http://www.epha.org/a/2175.
This alert appears on the web site of the European Public Health Alliance and
you can post a comment at http://www.epha.org/forum.php3?id_article=2175
Paul Connett
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following figures were sent to us by Roy and Carol Smith < smith33@lineone.net>.
PQ 3847/1994/95
British Fluoridation Society: Amount of public funding for the period from 1973
to 1995
Year
DOH
(£)
HEA (£)
73/74
NIL
15,356
74/75
NIL
NIL
75/76
4,500
NIL
76/77 5,500
NIL
77/78 5,500
500
78/79
5,500
NIL
79/80 5,500 NIL
80/81
11,000 NIL
81/82
14,000 NIL
82/83
15,000 NIL
83/84
15,000 NIL
84/85
15,000 5,500
85/86
30,000
10,000
86/87
20,000
15,000
87/88
20,000
13,000
88/89
30,000
20,977
89/90
31,000
11,574
90/91
45,784
3,428
91/92
51,491
NIL
92/93
56,000
NIL
93/94 62,247
NIL
94/95
63,000
NIL
95/96 78,000
96/97 117,000
Source: British Fluoridation Society
DOH - Department of Health
HEA - Health Education Authority
Note
In 1997 the Health Education Council changed its name to the Health Education
Authority.
..............................................................................................................
Government Grants to the British Fluoridation Society
Data Extracted from Audited Accounts - 01-04-1997 - 31-03-2004
(Year ending 31st March 2005, accounts not yet audited)
Year Ending DOH, England
Scotland Wales Northern
Ireland
31-03-2005 £87,000 £10,000 £5,000 £2,476
31-03-2004 £85,000 £10,000
£5,000 £2,382
31-03-2003 £84,050 £10,000
£5,000 £2,324
31-03-2002 £82,000
£8,000 £5,000 £2,268
31-03-2001 £80,000
£8,000 £5,000 £2,213
31-03-2000 £78,000
£8,000 £5,000 £2,159
Annual :
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
£93,159 £95,213 £97,268
£101,374 £102,382 £104,476
..............................................................................................................
THE FLUORIDE ACTION NETWORK
FAN Bulletin #528: British Fluoridation Society.
March 16, 2006.
Dear All,
Our last bulletin on the activites of the British Fluoridation Society and its
financial support from the British government, has prompted two replies. First,
we heard from Doug Cross, who wrote the following to his email list.
Dear All,
Glad to see that someone else has at last woken up to the fact that the British
Fluoridation Society is a Government propaganda outfit for its illegal policy
on water fluoridation. In fact the legal situation is far worse that many seem
to realise. Bear with me for a couple of minutes - this legal stuff is
important. There's enough concrete evidence here to shut down the BFS website
and its supporters for good. But in addition, it shows just how out of line the
current UK
and Irish legislation is that permits the addition of fluorosilicates to the
public water supplies. This is all based on the opportunistic exploitation by
these two member States of the critical defect in the EC Foods legislation that
improperly recognises 'fluoride' as a mineral in the lists of permitted food
supplements and additives.
'Fluoride' in the medicines and foods legislation.
Under the European legislative framework, water is a food, but NOT
if it contains any medicinal substance. Fluoride is added SOLELY with the
intent to suppress dental caries - i.e. it is used as a prophylactic medicine.
Adding any medicinal substance to water converts it irrevocably form a food
into a medicine, and its control passes to the medicinal legislation.
Fluoridated water complies with the latest definition of a medicinal product
(2004/27/EC) absolutely - it is medicinal by both presentation and function.
Despite this, the MHRA (and in Ireland,
the Irish Medicines Board) has perversely refused to recognise fluoridated
water as a medicinal product.
All medicines MUST be issued with a marketing authorization before they can be
placed on the market.The sale of any unlicensed medicinal product to the public
without a relevant marketing authorization is illegal. So also is
its promotion to the public.
Advertising an unlicensed medicinal product is a criminal offence.
Under 2004/27/EC the advertising or promotion of an
unlicensed medicinal product is absolutely prohibited; in the English
legislation it is a criminal action, for which a term of imprisonment can be
imposed. 'Advertising' may be by oral, written or electronic
communication, including on a web site. So, the persistent promotional
activities of the British Fluoridation Society, and of those pro-fluoridation
stalwarts who continue to peddle the alleged 'benefits' of this unlicensed
medicinal product are running a serious risk of having their collars felt and
their liberty seriously compromised.
Improper Governmental financial support for BFS activities.
The BFS is indeed supported handsomely by financial grants from all four
British legislatures. As I indicate above, its promotion to the public of the
use of the unlicensed medicine, fluoridated water, is a criminal act.
Allocating financial support for such activities by the legislatures is
therefore misappropriation of public funds - in what other area is the
Government permitted to fund criminal activities?
Perhaps the most surprising support is that of the Scottish Parliament. It has
declined to authorise water fluoridation, in great part on the basis of Lord
Jauncy's decision (in McColl v Strathclyde) that the water itself is the medium
whereby the active medicinal ingredient 'fluoride' is delivered to the recipient;
it is therefore a medicinal product. Yet still it spends Scottish tax revenue
on supporting the promotion of a product that it does not itself endorse - that
notable Scottish economist, Mr. Gordon Brown, seems to be missing a
point here! Should not the funding improperly paid out to the BFS over the past
thirty years now be recovered from that organisation, and restored to the
public purse, where it undoubtedly properly belongs? It might bankrupt the BFS,
but surely that is a small price to pay for the recovery of around one and a
half million pounds of public money?
Fluoride as a mineral in the food supplements Directive
As far as attempting to remove the presence of 'fluoride' as a
mineral under the Food Supplements Directive (2002/46/EC) is concerned, this is
entirely appropriate and must be supported by all who understand the law
relating to foods and medicines. Annexes I and II of the Directive specify
precisely those additives (vitamins and minerals) that may be added to foods
(Annex I) and the permissible sources of these substances (Annex
II). If the substance being added is not in Annex II then it is not
lawful to add it to a food.
In the food legislation, the only permissible sources of the' mineral' fluoride
are sodium and potassium fluoride. Fluorosilicates are not permissible source
materials for fluoride in any food.
'Fluoride' is the one substance that most certainly should be removed from the
Directive. All other substances in these lists are recognised as playing
essential biochemical roles in normal human metabolism. In the recent Expert
Opinion of maximum tolerable intake of fluoride prepared for the European Food
Safety Agency, the Expert Panel state at the outset that fluoride is not an
essential element in human nutrition; there is no metabolic requirement for
fluoride in the human diet. Its presence in the food supplements list of
'minerals' is therefore utterly incongruous.
The only reason that it is included is in relation to its alleged prophylactic
use in dental caries - it is thus a medicinal substance. No medicinal
substances may be included in foods, and no medical or health claims are
permitted for any food or food supplement.
Osteosarcoma.
The issue of osteosarcoma is of course of enormous concern. The development of
this condition appears to be initiated by a remarkably short exposure period -
less than four years according to Bassin's analysis. The longer legislators
delay in removing its permission for use from the statute book, the more young
boys are likely to develop this dreadful condition. Remember that although the
vulnerable age appears to be mainly a short four year or so period around the
ages of five to ten, ALL young males in the population have to pass through
this critical exposure period. And remember too that - so far - no one can be
certain that young females are not in some way also affected.
If ever there were a case for exercising the 'Precautionary Principle' surely
this is it?
Please circulate this note to anyone who may be likely to find it helpful in
understanding just what are the implications of including fluoride in the food
supplements Directive and any other legislation related to foods and medicines.
If anyone wants a detailed analysis of the legal aspects of the use of fluoride
as controlled by European Community Directives and Regulations, please contact
me directly. The analysis is too long to publish, unless anyone wants to put an
8-10 page technical paper into their Journal? It has been seen and checked by
senior legal experts and found to be sound!
Best wishes to all
Doug Cross, Environmental Analyst and Forensic Ecologist.
<maverick65@tiscali.co.uk>
, Tel ++44 (0) 1398 371305
Thanks again to Roy and Carol Smith for sharing the BFS funding data with us.
Needless to say we have no problem with a group organizing itself to promote
water fluoridation - however short-sighted that policy might be - but we do
have a problem with taxpayers money being used to fund their one-sided
propaganda. If the British government cannot distinguish between genuine
education efforts from blatant propaganda then the fairest thing for them to do
would be to provide equal funding to the National Pure Water Association and
let them duke it out on a level playing field.
Paul Connett