HL Deb 25 June 1998 vol 591 c44WA
Lord Stoddart of Swindon

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Further to the Written Answer by the Baroness Jay of Paddington on 10 June (WA 95), what is the health risk factor of:

  1. (a) drinking artificially fluoridated water; and
  2. (b) eating beef on the bone.
[HL2373]

Baroness Jay of Paddington

There is no evidence of harm to general health as a result of drinking artificially fluoridated water at 1 part per million. In its advice to Ministers, the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee said that bovine spongiform encephalopathy infectivity had been found in the dorsal root ganglia and bone marrow of cattle and there was a small risk of BSE-infected material entering the human food chain. Taking into account the advice of the Chief Medical Officer, the Government decided that it would be wrong knowingly to allow tissue that had been shown to transmit BSE into the human food chain.