European Parliament
McKenna (Verts/ALE ).
I very much agree with what my colleague Mrs Doyle said, and I do not actually feel that the Commissioner answered her questions adequately.
In relation to mass-medication, it is completely unacceptable in terms of freedom of choice that 9 million UK citizens and 2.7 million Irish citizens are being forcibly mass-medicated. In Ireland, 91% of submissions were actually against the fluoridation of water. Clearly there is a lack of public consent here.
The EU is not adhering to the precautionary principle, as it is supposed to. I would like to see the Commission push for fluoridation of drinking water throughout the EU to be discontinued until there is a proper, adequate assessment of the situation. For example, the fact there is a big difference in water consumption between hot countries and cold countries is not taken into account when discussing how much water people drink. In hotter countries a lot of people drink a lot more water and therefore they are consuming a lot more, and in some of the new Member States there is fluoride in hot water as well.
Mrs Doyle's point on infants is a really serious question because infant formula is being mixed with water that has been fluoridated, and I believe that there are serious consequences for children here. My opinion is that we should not be using formula anyway.

