Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

That is correct. He was equally emphatic in respect of the current Government, saying that the Department of Health is now even more determined not to be found in the wrong. He claimed this is the reason it has never revealed the long-term health effects of fluoride. He thinks it has a closed mind and takes the attitude of defending itself at all costs because it does not want a situation in which it might be proved wrong. It is okay to be proved wrong, however. I have often been proved wrong. There is evidence on both sides of the debate but the precautionary principle should apply. If the Government thinks it is good for us it should use the €4.6 million in funding to supply it in tablet form. We could have the choice of adding it to our tea. I had it this morning because the Government forced me to include it in my tea. It is an awful situation. This is forced medication.

The Government's prime witness in the 1964 case was a Dr. Harold Hodge from the United States. Dr. Hodge's reputation has been seriously damaged by the publication of a book, The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War, for which its author, Eileen Welsom, won a prize. The book documents human experiments in which the subjects did not even know they were being tested to find the safety limits of uranium and plutonium. In 1945, Dr. Hodge attended a meeting in which these experiments were planned and a memo from the US Atomic Energy Commission thanked him for his planning and suggestions in the experiments. The US Government eventually settled with the victims with an average payment of €400,000. In 1953, Dr. Hodge arranged for Dr. William Sweet of Massachusetts General Hospital to inject 11 terminally ill patients with uranium for their brain tumours. These patients may not have known that tests were being administered on them. The judge in the 1964 case singled out Dr. Hodge for special thanks for giving evidence over six days with unfailing courtesy and in an non-technical language.

Prior to the introduction of fluoridation up to 600 dentists were practising in this State.

If fluoridation brought about the promised 65% reduction in dental decay, many of the dentists could have gone on the dole or sought other careers. Today, we have some 2,000 dentists in the State and that statistic sums up the argument against fluoride. The passing of time has made a policy of mass fluoridation, if it was ever justified, completely redundant. We have plenty of dentists and we can have more if we need them. We also have toothpaste and we can improve our diet. We can cut down on sugary drinks that children are taking.

See this speech in context