Dublin, Wed 9th February 2011Calgary’s ending of fluoridation highlights risks to children in still fluoridated Ireland.The 10 to 3 vote by Calgary City councillors to stop fluoridating the drinking water of 1.1million residents raises yet more doubts about fluoridation in Ireland, the only EU member state to permit widespread fluoridation of drinking water (1).“A Calgary councillor even quoted the fact that European countries have rejected this indiscriminate measure, saying that other sources are available for those individuals who still wish to swallow fluoride” said VOICE spokesman Robert Pocock welcoming the Canadian decision of 8th Feb 2011.Here in Europe it is almost eight years since the last fluoridated Swiss city, Basel, voted in April 2003 by a similar margin (11 votes to 2) to stop fluoridation after 41 years, citing lack of effectiveness and the alarming rise in dental fluorosis in children there (2).An EU committee currently assessing the risks of adding the same fluorosilicates to Irish drinking water, described the practice in a preliminary opinion of June 2009 as“a crude and rather ineffective measure of systemic fluoride treatment … without a detectable threshold for dental and bone damage”. (3)Said the VOICE spokesman “How much longer are our children going to be put at risk from this crude treatment that Irish surveys confirm damages the teeth of one child in three? Why have successive Irish health ministers not confronted the very same evidence that both Basel and now Calgary have acted upon? Its time for some leadership on this important and worrying risk”.ENDS Info on 086 811 3071(1) http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Calgary+council+votes+fluoridation+municipal+water/4247383/story.html(2) http://www.fluoridealert.org/basel.htm(3) http://www.ukcaf.org/schers_verdict_on_water_fluoridation.html