It is an astonishing state of affairs, really. Government authorities here continue to ignore the work of Irish independent fluoride expert, Declan Waugh. Meanwhile, the West Cork scientist’s international reputation as an authority on fluoride toxicity has flourished to an extraordinary extent, since Hot Press conducted the first national media interview with him, in February of this year.

It is as if, in an act of wilful neglect, the sports authorities here refused to acknowledge the existence of Katie Taylor or Robert Heffernan. And the reason for it is that what Declan Waugh is saying about fluoride does not suit the agenda of the authorities. That does not make him wrong. On the contrary.
Declan Waugh has conducted a huge amount of research that has linked fluoride to multiple adverse health effects. This groundbreaking research is utilised by communities in Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand, in campaigns aimed at shutting down water fluoridation.
Indeed, Waugh’s evidence was recently used in a High Court legal action, which resulted in the outlawing of water fluoridation in Israel, which will see a complete end to the practice there by 2014. Back home, Waugh’s research will provide critical evidence in the upcoming High Court action being taken by Aisling FitzGibbon, the Girl Against Fluoride, to end the 50-year practice of mandatory water fluoridation in Ireland.
The latest vindication for Waugh’s work, on the world stage, was an invitation to give a keynote address at the 31st Annual Conference of the International Society for Fluoride Research, held two weeks ago in Tehran, the capital of Iran. Hosted by a different country every year, the annual conference allows the world’s top fluoride experts to get together to present data and exchange information on the latest fluoride science.
Despite the fact that Ireland is now the only country in the world, aside from Singapore, with a universal mandatory water fluoridation policy – making the annual international fluoride conference, and the latest information it showcases, highly relevant to the fluoride-consuming Irish public – Declan Waugh is the first Irish person ever to attend the conference. No representative of the Irish government-appointed, self-styled “independent, evidence-based Expert Body on Fluorides and Health” has ever attended the conference, despite the fact that one of its stated remits is “to advise the Minister and evaluate ongoing research – including new emerging issues ­­– on all aspects of fluoride”.
But then this is typical of the shocking neglect of proper research, of which both the Expert Body and the Department of Health have been responsible for the past 50 years...

They don’t put fluoride in the water in Iran, but it is still a subject of intense interest to the Government there.
“There’s a huge amount of fluoride research going on in Iran through the Tehran Medical University and its environmental research unit,” Declan Waugh explains. “Because of the geology, where you have oil you’ll also have areas of elevated naturally-occurring fluoride, so there are parts of Iran where they have a public health problem with severe dental fluorosis. At the conference, the Iranians presented numerous papers on de-fluoridation technology, and a lot of papers on some of the impacts they’re finding with fluoride toxicity, particularly on IQ in children [see panel].”
The Iranian government has established an advisory board on fluoride, with a view to minimising fluoride impact on their population.
“So, the Iranian government is doing the opposite to what our government has done,” Waugh adds. “The government here established a policy group to support the exposure of fluoride in our communities. Meanwhile, like Iran, the governments in India and China are actively trying to reduce their populations’ exposure to fluoride.
“The more you think about it, the more you realise that what’s happening here really is crazy. At the conference I met China’s leading medical expert on fluoride, Professor Guan. He has a whole State-paid division of researchers working on the pathology of fluoride and its impact on human health, on IQ, and on a whole range of other issues.
“It is fascinating. When the WHO had a meeting on fluoride in China recently, some people from the WHO recommended that China should look again at water fluoridation, and Professor Guan advised the Chinese government to absolutely reject this. He told me there was no way now that fluoridation would come into China. They already have such a problem there with exposure to fluoride from industrial pollution that there’s no way they can introduce another burden of fluoride exposure by adding it to their water supply. They’re actually trying to take it out of their water in many areas.”

The other keynote speakers at the fluoride conference in Tehran, and many of the other scientists who attended, are funded by their governments to research fluoride. Declan Waugh on the other hand receives no Irish state support for his work, which he finances himself.
In fact, for reasons best known to themselves, the so called Irish Expert Body on Fluorides and Health specifically denigrate Waugh’s work on their website. I have also heard members of this group speak dismissively of Waugh at a Dublin City Council information meeting. It must gall these bureaucrats – who are currently advising Alex White, the government minister responsible for water fluoridation in Ireland, on the ‘safety and effectiveness’ of water fluoridation – the extent to which Declan Waugh’s work is receiving international vindication.
The paper presented by Waugh in Tehran – entitled ‘Fluoride and its Contribution to the Burden of Inflammatory Respiratory Diseases Worldwide’ – contains important new research showing that the highest prevalence in the world of asthmatic disorders is, without exception, in high-fluoride countries and communities. This is of particular significance to Ireland, where childhood asthma has been skyrocketing. According to Waugh, there has been a 500 per cent increase in this disabling and life-threatening condition since we started water fluoridation 50 years ago.
The paper will be published in its entirety in January 2014 in a special stand-alone issue of the journal, Fluoride, published quarterly by The International Society for Fluoride Research. This is the most authoritative peer-reviewed journal of fluoride research worldwide, and is regularly referenced by the WHO and the EU.
We’ll return to the findings linking fluoride to asthma when they’re published next January. Meanwhile, the advice to asthma-sufferers is very clear: drink and cook with fluoride-free water. I have a friend who suffers from asthma, and her asthma has retreated considerably, after just one month into a regime that excludes ingesting Irish tap water.

For more information, visit Declan Waugh’s site, www.enviro.ie