Fluoridated water must be treated as a medicine, and cannot be used to prepare foods. That is the decision of the European Court of Justice, in a landmark case dealing with the classification and regulation of 'functional drinks' in member states of the European Community. (HLH Warenvertriebs and Orthica (Joined Cases C-211/03, C-299/03, C-316/03 and C-318/03) 9 June 2005)
Functional drinks are those products that have two different purposes – for example, nutrition and exerting a positive effect on some medical condition. They include 'near-water drinks with added minerals' and, in view of the properties claimed for fluoridated water by fluoride advocates,
it must be classified as a 'funtional food', and therefore falls within the scope of the relevant legislation.
Medicinal law takes precedent over food law.
The Court ruled that, where two different sets of rules appear to apply to a product, medicinal legislation must take precedent, and the product must be regulated as a medicine. It emphasised that medicines regulators in member states do not have the power to exercise discretion on the classification of such dual-function products.
The repeated refusal of the British and Irish Regulators to recognise fluoridated water as a medicinal product is therefore an unlawful misuse of their powers, and one that requires immediate reversal.
ECJ rulings do not establish new laws, but clarify how existing ones should be applied, and are enforceable in the domestic legislation of all member states of the EC. In effect, this decision at last confirms the claim that I have made for many years – t
hat existing medicinal law has always required that fluoridated water be regulated as a medicine. Fluoridated water has no medicinal marketing authorization ('product licence'), and because of this it is – and always has been - illegal to supply it to the public, as the 1968 Medicines Act confirms.
As a 'medicinal water', the protection afforded by the water quality regulations that shield consumers from hazardous substances in drinking water does not apply. Its use in the processing of foodstuffs is also prohibited, under the food safety legislation.
As a direct result of this ruling, all English and Irish legislation providing for water fluoridation are at last exposed as having been in violation of that fundamental prohibition, and must now be repealed.
Prohibition of use of fluoridated water in foods
But the Court also ruled that such functional food products must not be used in the preparation of foods.
As a 'medicinal water' the fluoridated product cannot be regarded as equivalent to the mandatory 'water for human consumption' specified for drinking and food preparation.
So now every food wholesale and retail outlet in fluoridated areas of the UK and Ireland, from the corner chip-shop to the largest brewery, from the small high-street bakery to the largest supermarket retailers - all will now have to either cease production or install an alternative water supply.
Implications for international trade in food products
But the ruling also has an equally profound implication for export trade in processed foods and drinks. The Court stated that even if a functional food product (or a food containing it) is legally marketed as a food in one member state,
it cannot be exported to any other member state unless it has a medicinal licence. So any company making a consumable product using fluoridated water in its preparation or as an ingredient cannot now export that product to any other state in the EC, even if their product is permitted in their home state.
The economic implications are enormous. Not only does the ruling ban the use of fluoridated water for all retail catering and wholesale food processing in the UK and Ireland, it also prohibits such trade from these states to other member states of the EC. But it goes much further than even this, because if British and Irish processed foods from fluoridated areas cannot be exported to the EC, this prohibition must also apply to the importing of such products into EC member states from any other country that practices
water fluoridation. The decision effectively bans all processed food products from countries such as the USA, Australia and New Zealand, unless they can be positively proven to have been prepared using only water that was not fluoridated.
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Originally Posted by Wakeupcall
