Sam Barsam (Letters, June 15), contends fluoridating water supplies would reduce levels of tooth decay in Brighton and Hove and that the benefits would outweigh the risks.

Professor Trevor Sheldon, chair of the Advisory Group for the Government's 2000 York Review into water fluoridation, stated: "The size of the estimated benefit, only of the order of 15 per cent, is far from 'massive'".

It continued, "the review found water fluoridation to be significantly associated with high levels of dental fluorosis, which was not characterised as just a cosmetic issue... The review did not show water fluoridation to be safe".

The review actually found 48 per cent of people in existing fluoridated areas (the North-East and West Midlands) to be suffering from dental fluorosis, an ugly dental disfigurement recognised by scientists worldwide as the first visible sign of chronic fluoride poisoning.

Wrist X-rays revealed 96 per cent of children with dental fluorosis have "developmental skeletal abnormalities", including carpal bone hardening or thickening.

The US Environmental Working Group recently found "a strong, statistically-significant relationship between fluoride in tap water at levels commonly found in US water supplies, and the rare but often fatal form of bone cancer, osteosarcoma, in boys... The findings confirm the results of earlier studies by the US Public Health Service and the New Jersey Department of Health, which found an association between fluoride in tap water and bone cancer in males under age 20".

Osteosarcoma cancer treatment usually requires limb amputation.

More than 40,000 published research papers show a list of adverse health effects from fluoridated water so long they fill two sides of A4 paper.

Every individual has the right, clearly protected in domestic and EU law, to refuse, choose and discontinue medication. Yet water

fluoridation is mass, indiscriminate medication of entire populations, without individual consent or diagnosis and indefinitely.

Tooth decay must be tackled by proper dental health education

programmes.

Parents of children with poor dental health must take responsibility for dealing with it rather than entire populations sacrificing their health, rights and their water bills.

-Gary Kemp, Sussex Against Fluoridation. keepwatersafe-@yahoogroups.co.uk , Florence Road, Brighton