Secondary legislation on water fluoridation became law on April 1, defining the "public consultations" required of Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs) prior to ordering water companies to fluoridate public water supplies and indemnifying them against civil and criminal liability for so doing.

It is not the business of water companies to medicate the populace or of any person or organisation to order them to do so.

Their sole legitimate business is to supply clean, drinkable water for which we, their customers, pay them.

The proposed "consultations" may involve no more than an announcement of the SHAs plans in a local paper or informing local authorities.

Even then, the final decision lies with the SHA.

This is an outrageous violation of the basic - and legally protected - right of each individual to decide what we put into our own bodies.

Any doctor who forced medication on a patient would be struck off and possibly jailed, yet water fluoridation is the forced, indiscriminate medication of entire populations.

Brighton and Hove City Council passed an anti-fluoridation motion in 2003. I suggest people lobby their councillors about this extremely worrying precedent for the intrusion of the state into peoples lives.

For more information see www.fluoridealert.org

A local group is also campaigning against water fluoridation. See http://geocities.com/keepwatersafe/.

-Graham Parfitt, Brighton