NATIONAL FLUORIDE INFORMATION CENTRE DOES NOT EXIST

The Government's flagship 'Information Centre' is a lonely telephone
answering machine in an abandoned building.

The UK Councils Against Fluoride website reveals that......

"The 'National Fluoride Information Centre' was set up by the British Government in 2004. It was enthusiastically promoted as a reputable 'academically independent centre', and every effort was made to raise its public profile as a new and reliable Centre of Excellence, to persuade the public and the Health Sector that it would become an authoritative official source of information on fluoride.

Five years on, we have the evidence of what we have long suspected - that this 'National Centre' is a sham. It has no full-time staff, and no office. There is no manned Help Line. Instead, it's a tiny locked room in an almost empty building, abandoned as unfit for modern science two years ago.

Unlike your local Health Centre or Tourism Centre, you can't book an appointment, or just drop in - there's no-one there. Even the maintenance staff have never heard of it! So today we show you what this prestigious National Centre of Excellence really is. Then we'll identify who is behind it, and what needs to be done to stop such political manipulation in the future."

When Health Secretary Alan Johnson attended the 2008 Annual Conference of the National Fluoride Information Centre (NFIC), he predictably echoed the familiar dogma of the pro--fluoridation lobby, urging Primary Care Trusts and Regional Health Authorities in England to "push forward with the consultation process about fluoridating water supplies". He was followed by the Deputy Chief Dental Officer, Tony Jenner, who sang the praises of Manchester University for hosting the NFIC which, he said, was "making a positive contribution to raising the public’s general awareness about the value of water fluoridation."

But were they really aware of just how empty their welcoming speeches really were? Despite all their no-doubt ernest intentions, their words were mere meaningless rhetoric. They simply reinforced the cynical propaganda that has become the foundation of one of the most offensive medical scams ever perpetrated on the public by the UK's increasingly disreputable Department of Health.For the NFIC is a charade; there is, in fact, nothing that resembles a 'National Centre' in the Coupland 3 Building of Manchester University - just a couple of (very) part-time staff and a deserted room with a telephone answering machine.

The whole set-up is a deliberate public relations scam by the Department of Health and its spin-doctors, an illusion designed to persuade the general public and, especially, health professionals across the entire country, that here is an academically respectable Centre of Excellence that provides reliable and unbiased information on which public decisions about water fluoridation can be based.For the rotten truth behind all the hype, the frenetic busy-ness of International Conferences, and the sponsored research, is that it's all nothing but a facade.

The Centre was designed to replace the Government's hopelessly ineffective propaganda outfit, the British Fluoridation Society, with more skilled professional manipulators of public opinion. A new operation, directed by professional spin-doctors, was essential to drive the Department's new programme to impose water fluoridationon almost half of the population of England. There was, inevitably, a problem. Public awareness of the dangers of water fluoridation is now far greater, since everyone has easy access to the world's scientific literature through the Internet. Resistance to ernest reassurances of the 'safety and efficacy' of fluoridation was becoming alarmingly high. So the new unit had to give at least an appearance of solid academic respectability - and where better than that hot-bed of fluoridation promotion, Manchester University's Dental Units.When the Centre was set up, the University proudly trumpeted its hosting of the NFIC:‘England’s first independent fluoride information centre has been launched using funding from the Department of Health, to meet an anticipated public demand for information after changes to the Government’s Water Bill.'

What it completely forgot is that the public is already very well aware of where it can find indepedent information on fluoridation - those sources already exist, and are not under tight Governmental control!The semblance of academic respectablity is boosted by the Centre's Annual Conference, attended by delegates from all over the world, and it channels some of its DoH funding of £125,000 a year into academic research aimed at improving knowledge about fluorides and fluoridation. The Centre's first Director, Professor Anthony Blinkhorn, enthusiastically encouraged the public to contact the Centre on its public Help Line, assuring us that "The helpline is manned Monday–Friday and incorporates an out-of-office voicemail service."The Department's dynamic new ‘Information Centre’, with its full-time high-tech ‘Help Line’, has been in operation for the past five years, so you would be justified in assuming that it is a well-established and polished operation, with a busy Reception area and cabinets full of reliable leaflets and information sheets ready for inquirers to pick up and take away to study.Health professionals across the country believe that the Centre has a substantial physical and academic presence, and its statements on fluoridation are received with appropriate gravity and respect throughout the Health Sector.

Coupland Building 3 reception - there's no-one here to direct you to the NFIC - the staff have never heard of it! The laboratories were abandoned as 'unsuited to modern science'. The safe stands open and empty!
This is where the phone rings when you call the NFIC 'Help Line'. Inside - just an answering machine.
Health and Safety would have a field day here - timber with upstanding nails strewn on the stairs.

Not exactly the image of respectability that the Dept of Health endorses. This semi-deserted, dirty and dreary building is the permanent home of the elusive 'National Fluoride Information Centre'.
The reality - an abandoned building, 'unfit for modern science'.
And that, of course, is exactly the impression that the Dept of Health's promotion and publicity has been designed to provide. It is an unfortunate fact that the most successful hoaxers rely on their victims being willing and gullible enough to deceive themselves, and there has certainly been some expert manipulation of the public's perception of this supposedly prestigious National Centre of Excellence.Government hype has persuaded lazy Health Service staff to swallow the propaganda pouring from the pro-fluoride spin machine - they don't have the time to check out the reliability of their sources, and assume that because the Department recommends the Centre, it must be kosher.But In reality, the whole exercise is a public relations illusion. There is no 'Centre' in the Coupland 3 Building, the official address of the NFIC. Although the University spent £1.3 million renovating the building ten years ago, the Shool of Pharmacy moved out in 2007, because the building was 'unfit for modern science', and the building remains virtually abandoned.When our Investigator walked in and asked a baffled receptionist and security man where the NFIC was, they were utterly confused. When he used his mobile phone to call the Help Line from the corridor, the phone in room CG117 rang; when he hung up, it stopped.So it emerges that the dynamic heart of this busy and illustrious 'National Centre' is in fact an empty, tiny, but securely locked room, in a semi-derelict building on the Manchester University campus. On its dusty desk is a telephone answering machine. Kate Tidman, the nominal 'Communications Manager' of the Oral Health Unit and (very part-time) of the NFIC and an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, visits this forgotten outpost of the University for ten minutes or so, about once a week, to collect messages left by frustrated callers to the Centre's permanently un-manned 'Help Line'.The desk drawers are empty, the cupboards bare. The building's reception, security and maintenance staff have never heard of the NFIC, and even the few researchers still inhabiting this shell are confused and vague about the NFIC's very existence.So just what is going on here? The Centre's Annual report discloses only two members of staff. The Director, Prof. Robin Davies, is head of the Oral Health Unit, based in the Williamson
Building elsewhere on the campus, and also has a senior research post with Colgate. With his many research and management roles in the University's dental faculty, he is hardly able to spend a great deal of his valuable time twiddling his thumbs in a cramped and dusty room waiting to assist casual callers on the Help Line. Ms Tidman also has a busy schedule in the Oral Health Unit - again hardly a job that would allow her to slot much of her time into a busy schedule, despite the supposed great demand for information from the NFIC that was so eagerly anticipated by the University back in 2004.And since there is no sign anywhere in the room of all the 'information' that the Centre's website says the Centre can supply - room CG117 is indeed, totally bereft of any sign of any form of printed material at all - just where does Ms Tidman squirrel away this hoard of valuable guidance material?As far as we can see, the £125,000 Department of Health grant to the NFIC goes towards maintaining a catchy web site where most of the documentation can be downloaded free of charge and, presumably, to cover the costs of running the annual Conference. The only two staff identified are both full-time employees of the Oral Health Unit, and are presumably paid out of its £2 million annual salaries budget, so just what is the DoH - sorry, our - money spent on?The NFIC channels Department of Health funds (presumably not the cash included in the direct grant to the Centre) to sponsor research into such essential dental research as 'the assessment of facial attractiveness' in cases of dental fluorosis, as perceived by students. To our suspicious minds, this sounds suspiciously like an attempt to try to find just what degree of dental fluorosis the public can be persuaded is 'attractive', a desperate claim that we have heard several times recently from promoters of the more arcane 'benefits' of fluoridation.The evidence that the NFIC is nothing more than a paper exercise exposes the depths to which this depraved Government and its autocratic Department of Health will go to mislead even health professionals that fluoridation is a viable therapeutic option, even under today's supposedly more enlightened approach to 'evidence-based' medicine. In our next issue we will discuss who is behind this scam, and how commercial interests now manipulate ingenuous politicians to over--ride ethical and prudent health care policies.

FLUORIDATION IN YORKSHIRE GIVEN THUMBS DOWN BY BBC LEEDS LISTENERS

This morning, BBC Radio Leeds main story was the decision to hold the usual bullshit "consultation" and "fact finding study" on fluoridation in Yorkshire. None of this is at the behest of the public in Yorkshire of course but at the bidding of the Strategic Health Authority. and local Primary Care Trust. Neither of these are elected bodies of course, merely puppet organisations created specifically to do the bidding of the Government and ensure that Fluoridation goes ahead despite public opposition.

This time because of the pipe network, they claim that it will also have to be extended to Northumberland. This comes on the recent revelation that some 50,000 Sheffield are already getting fluoridated water from Severn Trent Water who last year cocked up fluoridation of one of their pumping stations and delivered up to twice the allegedly safe dose of one part per million. The worker responsible for the fluoridation it turns out, was untrained or qualified and when alarms went of, these too were ignored. The drinking water inspectorate, apparently part of DEFRA were not exactly quick off the mark either, Although its true that Severn Trent didnt notify the DWI until a couple of months had elapsed, this whole business only came to light when the DWI published its annual report. Surely it would have been more appropriate to notify consumers immediately in order to reduce any risk. But neither Severn Trent nor the DWI bothered to do so.

It would also have been nice to let the unlucky water consumers in Sheffield who "because of the pipe network" also get Severn Trents fluoridated water that fluoridation was already underway without consultation or notification. A few people know about this but not the general public. But of course when your the SHA or the PCT, you are a law onto yourself and don't need to trouble yourself about little details such as medical ethics or even democracy which lets face it, just gets in the way of incompetent buffoons, going about their business of doing as they damn well please, and drawing on their expenses untill they get their CBEs or Knighthoods for "Public Service" (sic) It also turns ouot that up to 32 primary schools in the Sheffield area are also getting fluoride in their milk.

Any one with a couple of braincells to rub together would be concerned that the allegedly safe level of fluoride in water is one part per million, irrespective of how much water you drink and that also supplying kids with fluoridated milk, might just take consumption over that level. Apparently however, the SHA members have been consuming their own product and no longer aspire to more than one braincell.

The presenters on BBC Radio Leeds, showed little understanding of the seriousnes of fluoride but were indeed impressed by the large volume of calls, emails and texts they received on the subject. Only a handfull of which, as they admitted were PRO fluoride. Most who contacted the station were concerned about this toxic material and its health effects, although the presenters thought poisonous was a more contentious word than Toxic. Presumably they thought Toxic was something to do with debt following on from the Credit Crunch. Most of the callers however were much better informed and complained about not just the effects on health in the long term and the fact that there is little evidence to show that fluoride even protects teeth. They also raised the issue of compulsory mass medication and the fact that the Consultation in Hampshire and Southampton had indeed been a total sham fuelled by a pack of lies about listening to the public, who were subsequently completly ignored. Now this same process is underway in Yorkshire subject to the results of the Judicial Review in Hampshire which has caused a temporary halt to the game.

The chair of the National Pure Water Association Elizabeth McDonagh was treated with little respect however, given only a little time and then challenged about whether she was medically qualified. And this despite the fact that most of the buggers on the SHA know virtually nothing about fluorides effects on the body, or profess too. As if to prove this they refused the BBC's invite to take part on the program. and this from the people charged with the fact finding and consultation process. One would thought that they would have jumped at the chance to take part to get the truth over to the public. The couldnt do this of course because it would merely highlight the real truths of fluoridation, ie; just how stupid and ignorant its proponents really are.

Of the phone calls however, One brain donee claiming to be an ex exployee of Thames Water said fluoride was a good thing because it "purified the water" Little wonder with such a knowledge base that he no longer works for Thames. And what of the poor Hygienist who obviously read directly from the propaganda sheets supplied by the fluoridistas when she claimed to have read "hundreds of reports" saying how "safe and effective" fluoride really was.

Fortunately, the large majority of the good people of West Yorkshire along with most other regions of the country are not that stupid and gave fluoridation the thumbs down and the bums rush. They dont want it. Full Stop. The presenter even spontaneously put the question to a Leeds University Research into Epilepsy who was also a guest in the studio but he made it clear that it should not be foisted upon the public without their consent. Well done that man.

Friends of the Earth should call for the sacking of the SHA' s and the PCT's who are clearly in no way representative of the public or their wishes. They have little understanding of the depth of feeling that compulsory mass medication evokes in people and apparently care even less. Maybe they are ignorant psychophants or just a pain in the arse, or most probably both. either way they should be abolished and replaced immediatley with panels of local people who really understand local needs and feelings and dont bow and scrape to Gordon Brown and his dwindling bunch of nonentities and time servers or dance to the tune of the next expenses cheque or the promise of some meaningless award for doing bugger all at great expense..... our expense!

SHEFFIELD FLUORIDATION WITHOUT PERMISSION OR CONSULTATION

It now emerges that because of the water distribution network in parts of Sheffield, they already get fluoridated water, despite the fact that there has been no "consultation" or even notification of the affected people. Severn Trent is in the news again this time because they are fluoridating Parts of Sheffield. Severn Trent fluoridate their water as instructed by the Strategic Health Authority and have apparently being doing so for years. So much for the bullshit about "consultation" and public consent. Sheffield was always strongly opposed to fluoridation but is now turning into a Fluoridation Blackspot with covert or at least silent water fluoridation and perhaps more allarmingly, fluoridation of childrens milk in 32 Sheffield Primary Schools.

Even those who have given permission probably have little real knowledge of fluoride or its wide ranging side-effects and this is not surprising as even people on the SHA's andin the BDA know little or nothing of the epidemiology or toxicology of fluoride. If fluoride has any beneficial effects on teeth at all then it is through topical application directly onto the tooth as in brushing with fluoridated toothpaste but even this effect is marginal at best. 99% of all the fluoridated water goes straight to the sewers and treatment plants where it passes into the rivers without any constraint or filtering.

Wake up Sheffield, you and your children are already being poisoned and any future conssultation is only a method of bamboozling you into believing they will take any notice of your opinions. Dont vote for these lunatics and dont pay for drinking water contaminated by fluoride. You are already paying the water companies for disposal of sewage so dont pay them twice over so they can potentially damage your health. They cannot disconnect your supply as this would be illegal. Say No To Mass Medication with toxic waste, Say No To Fluoride.

Further info on fluoride from the National Pure Water Association, the UK Councils Against Fluoride and the Fluoride Action Network and Friends of the Earth.

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