Get off the fence on mass medication

ON January 27, Health Minister Micheál Martin treated Dáil deputies to his well-worn refrain that fluoridation of drinking water must continue as a mass public health measure.

Never mind the fact that not one of the recommendations of his Fluoridation Forum, which reported 18 months ago, has been implemented. As for the expert body that he promised would implement all eight of the forum's recommendations, not a word has been heard of it.

Is this the same minister who, not 50 metres away on the steps of Dáil Éireann, proclaimed on RTÉ's Prime Time of February 24 barely a month later that the reason he would not entertain the addition of folic acid to flour even though it could reduce by half the 75 babies born here annually with neural tube defects was because mass medication would be beyond contemplation? Why? Because it infringes human rights, is unethical, has many legal obstacles and is rejected by consumers.