Legislating for Fluoride |
Why do we need a campaign for water fluoridation?
BFS suggested answer
Only around 10% of the UK population currently receives fluoridated water mainly in the West Midlands and the North East of England. However, over 60 health authorities are being prevented from implementing water fluoridation policies because current legislation is flawed.
BFS suggested answer refuted
The passion to regulate the lives of others is deep-seated in many individuals. When this is based on political expediency, it is bad, and when it is inspired by an idealism which wishes to inflict benefit on others, it can be dangerous.
Sir Arthur Amies
Despite pressure from the British Fluoridation Society, the British Dental Association, and other health authorities for over fifty years, only about 9 per cent of the population of England and Wales drinks fluoridated water. The reason given by the BFS for this is that ‘legislation is flawed’. What they mean by this is in the wording of the Water (Fluoridation) Act 1985, which states:
1. B(1) Where a health authority have applied in writing to a statutory water undertaker for the water supplied within an area specified in the application to be fluoridated, that undertaker may, while the application remains in force, increase the fluoride content of the water supplied by them within that area.
The bone of contention in this subsection, as far as the fluoride lobbyists are concerned, is the inclusion of the word ‘may’. This gives the water companies the option of refusing to comply with a health authority’s request, thus giving the water company the final say on whether to add fluoride to the water.
Section 4 of the Act requires health authorities wishing to add fluoride to drinking water to publish details of the proposal in local newspapers and give notice of it to every local authority whose area falls wholly or partly within the area affected by the fluoridation proposal, at least three months before its implementation. This section also requires the health authority to consult each of the local authorities affected by the proposal and take note of their wishes. Before the proposal to fluoridate goes ahead, the health authority is required to consider any representations that have been made to it and any consultations that have taken place with interested parties.
But the health authority is not bound by these representations and consultations – and it shows. Over the years, even where local authorities and people in the community have told the health authority that they do not want fluoride, health authorities have invariably overridden these objections and requested water companies to put fluoride in the drinking water anyway.
The evidence given in the previous chapter demonstrates that people do not want fluoride. The water companies know this, and mindful that they will carry the can if anyone is harmed by fluoride, no water company has added fluoride to its drinking water since the 1985 Act, even though some sixty requests for fluoridation have been made by health authorities to water companies since the Act became law.
Dentists and health authorities see these failures to fluoridate as a conspiracy by the water companies to thwart their efforts to improve the dental health of the nation. They refuse to accept that people do not want fluoride.
This so-called ‘flaw’ has prompted the pro-fluoride lobby to make a concerted effort to get the law changed in order to compel water companies to add fluoride.
The plot thickens
But there is a second subtle twist to the plot. At present, all local councillors at district, town and county level discuss, debate and vote on all matters within their jurisdiction. Meetings, both of committees and the full council, are open to the public and press. The British government proposes to change this so that decisions will be taken by a ‘Cabinet’ rather than by the whole council. The government also proposes to shift decision-making on fluoridation away from health authorities and give it to local councils. This means that a small caucus of councillors within the ruling political group, which is likely to dominate political activity in the council, will decide whether their district or town shall be fluoridated.
Local councillors are chosen and elected by their people; area health authorities, on the other hand, are unelected officials. By shifting the responsibility for fluoridation from health authorities to local councils, the British government is giving the impression that it is making the process more democratic. But the proposed shift from open government to Cabinet-style government, with decisions being taken in camera, thus excluding the public and the press, makes the process even more suspect that it is at present.
Local government insurance
The new human rights legislation in the UK came into force on 2 October 2000. With the introduction of that legislation, all authorities, whether local or state, government or other public or private bodies, that are involved in the fluoridation process will become liable not only for the infringement of those rights but also for compensation for any resulting adverse effects, both in the future and in the past.
Eighty per cent of local government authorities and a huge number of other public-sector organisations, including NHS Trusts, are insured with Zurich Municipal. According to Rachel Coventry, Zurich’s local government marketing controller:
The incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into domestic law could land organisations that fail to prepare in court, but many of the dangers can be foreseen. Local authorities can help to protect themselves by conducting audits to assess the compliance with the new requirements. Those that don’t could find themselves paying the price.1
The implications of the legislation are clear: it appears that government and its lower echelons have much to learn about their responsibilities to the public.
Conclusion
The people of Britain, like people in most other countries, don’t want fluoride added to their drinking water. It seems to me that the reason that this campaign is thought necessary by the BFS is that only by compulsion can people be forced to take this toxic substance against their wishes. As Sir Arthur Amies said, it’s a dangerous business – as local councils deciding on fluoridation would do well to consider.
1.Councils given six-month Human Rights Act warning. 29 March 2000. http://www.zurichmunicipal.com/localauthorities/press/med20000329_6_month_warning.htm. Accessed 2 May 2000.