as a second reading of the water flouridation bill took place in the commons...
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Evening Times
Glasgow, Scotland
8 September, 2003
[article should be online after 2pm
at
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Fluoride bid will be passed says MP
The Scots MP at the forefront of the campaign to stop the fluoridation of water predicts the Government will be given the all-clear today.
Cunninghame South MP Brian Donohoe believes plans to fluoridate water supplies throughout the UK to fight child tooth decay will be carried at today's second reading in the Commons - but at the cost of a backlash against Labour.
Mr Donohoe, who is vice chairman of the Commons anti-fluoridation group, said the Government would manoeuvre the Bill through Parliament today - the first day after the holiday, but would pay the price.
He believes the overwhelming number of voters are strongly opposed to fluoride being added to water supplies without having a chance of local referendums to test opinion.
"The Government will win the day today," he said. "But when the public realise what has happened and they are to have little or no say, it will rebound on Labour.
"People will say this is just more evidence of the Government not listening and again it will raise the issue of trust."
Mr Donohoe's stance on fluoride in water was backed last night by Liberal Democrats, Muslims and the Greens who are heading a protest rally at Parliament today.
They claim the Government have had to offer water companies indemnity, so that taxpayers will foot the bill if anything goes wrong.
Jane Jones, campaign director for the National Pure Water Association, said: "Water fluoridation is the deliberate pollution of our drinking water."
LibDem environment spokesman Norman Baker said: "The case for what is effectively compulsory medication has not yet been made. But it is the right of local communities to decide.
"The decision must be given to locally elected bodies."
The Scottish Parliament has the final say on whether water supplies are fluoridated north of the border.
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(Letters to the Editor:
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letters:
Right to be angry about poison in the water
The big issue: Fluoridation
Sunday September 7, 2003
The Observer
People are right to be angry about plans to fluoridate water supplies (News, last week). Under the European Convention on Human Rights and Medicine, a patient must give consent to medication, and be free to withdraw consent at any time. Fluoridation destroys that right.
Evidence around the world suggests fluoridation does not reduce tooth decay, and many European countries abandoned the policy years ago. Yet the Government seems determined to fluoridate our water supplies without telling us.
Martyn Shrewsbury
Health spokesman, Green Party, Swansea
The fluoride used in water fluoridation is not pharmaceutical grade but toxic waste from phosphate fertiliser factory chimneys which is registered as a poison under the 1972 Poisons Act. It is more poisonous than lead and only slightly less poisonous than arsenic.
Health Minister Hazel Blears said those who objected could use filters or buy bottled water. To remove fluoride needs a plumbed-in reverse osmosis unit costing hundreds of pounds.
Bottled water is expensive, heavy to carry and creates plastic waste. Bottled water would have to be used for cooking, too, since fluoride in water gets more concentrated when boiled.
A. Wills
Ruislip, Middlesex
We expected the data pointing to the dangers of fluoride to lead to the practice being stopped after a 30-year trial. It is with disbelief that we learn the Government is trying to fluoridate the whole country.
Cynthia Bagchi
Bedford Allergy Support Group
Sheila Jones claims 'fluoride is completely safe'. Yet the issue at stake is a change in legislation permitting the Government - or rather the taxpayer - to indemnify water companies against liability for illnesses caused when the Government forces them into administering this unpopular and undemocratic mass medication.
Shanti Mahan
London N19
Basel in Switzerland stopped water fluoridation because it found absolutely no improvement. Many studies show no difference in decay rates. Even if it made a difference it would still be fraudulent, disposing of highly toxic waste from the fertiliser industry by trickling it into the water supply.
(Matthew Parkes Dublin, Ireland)
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even old timer Jimmy Young is getting hip to the debate:
"However, the issue is so controversial that reports say the water companies want the Government to grant them "civil and criminal indemnity" if they are forced to fluoridate." (jimmy young column)
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I have a few questions
why are these companies so adamant???
could this be the most important part of the whole debate?
(yesterday on BBC News 24 Geoff Hoon called Water a 'commodity' with regard to IRAQ ),
Now, if a supplier of a major life sustaining 'commodity', can have no recourse to the law... what other indemnities will the different government authorities be allowed to dole out ???
is this the beginning of a new corporatism?
with no accountability for the companies which
provide our services...
for example...
imagine if the government had to boost spending...
they then deregulate the power companies
and they change the AC/DC current ,
so that our electrical goods have a shorter life span...
and off the public trundles to the shops...
it could happen...
er... blackouts anyone???
(another example the isreali security forces now issue a contract that peace activists/ charity workers have to sign... that states that no responsibility lies with the army if they shoot them...)
I wonder what kind of indemnities the British Police/ special branch would want???
the media seem to be editing this part of the flouridation debate out of the public eye...
best wishes