Fluoride: European Court ruling starts to bite.

This is an update from Doug Cross, the man behind the UK website. - Werner

“Section 130 defines ‘medicinal product’ and I am satisfied that fluoride in whatever form it is ultimately purchased by the respondents falls within that definition.” *

The potential impact of the European Court of Justice ruling that functional drinks must be regulated as medicines is starting to alarm exporters of processed foods to the EC. Inevitably, fluoridation apologists are trying to dismiss the warning - but once the legal challenges start to reach the Courts they will force the fluoride supporters to accept that their quack remedy must not be used to prepare food for human consumption.

* Lord Jauncy, 1983, on the application of the Medicines Act 1968 to fluoridated water.
The full implications of my article outlining the implications of the Warenvertriebs and Orthica case ruling by the European Court of Justice, that I published here in May, are beginning to bite!

With over 6000 downloads already, especially from readers in overseas fluoridated countries, the Australian Trade Commission, Austrade, is urgently seeking clarification about the possibility that the ruling could mean a trade embargo on the export of a wide range of processed foods to the European Community.

Inevitably, there are determined efforts by the dental and public health sector advocates of fluoridation to dismiss my conclusions as the ramblings of an 'anti-fluoride activist'. Well, that takes care of the legal argument, then! I guess fifty years as a jobbing scientist and para-legal don't count when you're dealing with real professional dentists.

We 'Activists', of course, do take an active role in looking at the issues that emerge from policies that we find irrational. Does that make us inferior to the fluoride protagonists, who find it easier to play a passive role and accept the relentless propaganda pouring from the scientifically illiterate dental sector? So let's ignore the infantile inuendos and slurs against our personal characters for a moment, and concentrate on facts.

Under EC Law, any product promoted as having medicinal properties MUST be classified, regulated and licensed as a medicine. This applies 'even if the product is generally regarded as a food . . and even if it has no known therapeutic properties under the present state of scientific knowledge'.

And in Scotland, Lord Jauncy made it quite clear back in 1983 that he interpreted the UK law on medicines as applying to any form of fluoride purchased by the consumer.

A product does not need to have pharmacological properties (i.e. to be 'medicinal by function') to be classed as a medicine - simply claiming that fluoridated water prevents tooth decay is enough to render it subject to medicinal law. So fluoridated water is indeed a 'functional drink' - it DOES come under EC medicinal law, and MUST therefore be regarded as a medicine. Everything else I have said in my analysis follows.

All that is needed now is direct legal confirmation that the ruling applies to fluoridated water - either a case before the European Court or a Judicial Review in national law will do. And then of course, Queensland Premier Anna Bligh's forlorn argument that 'EC law does not apply in Australia' (or elsewhere) becomes irrelevant.

Click to enlarge!