Tuesday 5 February 2008

Shut up and take your medicine!

So Alan Johnson is saying we ought to have flouride in the water supply everywhere.. and the North West health services are looking into it.

Surely there is a way of improving children's teeth that doesn't involve forced medication!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, it's called investing in dentistry and providing incentives for dentists to stay in the NHS.

I've written more here but essentially the cost of dentistry is too high and too rare in this country, and no amount of fluoride will undo the damage that does to our teeth.

Anonymous said...

Fluoride is currently put in salt I believe, so its not as if its a new thing.
Forced medication is a rather alarmist way of putting it. Its a proven public health measure, and in the amounts used it has no side effects at all. Do you have anything to offer other than scaremongering?

Paula Keaveney said...

Well if it is put in salt we can decide whether or not to add salt to our cooking or our meals.

The jury is out on harmful effects (and there is evidence that shows that flouride can do harm in certain circs) but I wouldn't pretend to know enough to make a judgement.

But the issue here is adding something to drinking water, which we all need to use, when there are plenty of other ways of dealihg with this as a health issue.

by the way its not scaremongering to point out that its forced medication.. if its in the water and you and I have to drink it, we are being forced to take the stuff whether we want to or not. Its a case of definiton.