Lush Gets Into A Lather Over Fluoride - Vaccines Next?

Lush makes a damn fine soap. Their staff are friendly, energetic and helpful, and I often pay a visit when wrapping up my Christmas shopping. Until recently my only complaint was that I can smell their shops at twenty paces.

That changed this week when they described vaccination as 'very divisive' and announced the launch of an Ireland only anti fluoridation campaign. Rebecca Lush Blum (above) is the charitable giving manager for Lush's multi million Euro charity fund and spoke in her official capacity on Lush's Cork Facebook page. Her description of vaccination as 'very divisive' is dangerous. It's also nonsense. Vaccination rates have never been higher - 96% of Irish two year olds are now covered by the six in one vaccine, despite the fact that we give charitable tax status to vaccine opponents. This represents a significant victory against the vaccination opponents that caused an outbreak of measles in Cork a mere two years ago. I find it outrageous that a Lush spokesperson in the UK would seek to pretend there is any sort of Irish debate on whether or not we should protect children from easily preventable diseases.

How did this all start?


Lush sell a 'charity pot'. It's a worthy idea: they sell a hand and body lotion and grant the profits to smaller charities and activists. So far they've raised over 4.5 million Euro globally. With small grants going to small organisations there's always the risk of inadvertently backing a questionable group. It happens, and it's a risk that comes with a commitment to charitable giving.

In this instance the - how to put this delicately - suboptimal group was The Girl Against Fluoride. Lush's Cork branch announced that they'd be supporting the campaign's unique mesh of angel healing, vaccine opposition, fluoridation scaremongering and homophobia. The commentary this drew from their customers is a thing of beauty. Go read. Of the 210 messages the only support for the move came from one man in Australia. I feel it safe to assume he is not a frequent imbiber of Irish tap water or a regular visitor to Lush's Cork branch.

I was glad to read that, two days later, Lush listened to their customers and cancelled the event:

Reading the announcement was not an unmixed delight as I learned that Lush "intend to run a campaign in all our Ireland shops to further explore concerns around lifelong intake of fluoride". Lush Blum makes the same comment under her own account here.  Again we have Lush Blum's opinion on what matters are divisive in Irish society. It seems we're all worried about intake of fluoride.

Where is the evidence for this concern? The Girl Against Fluoride campaign is so unpopular that it failed to give away free tickets to a Kila gig. I went to see the thronging masses at their much touted protest outside the Irish Medicines Board earlier this year. They attracted a total of eight adults:

Is this really the mark of an issue that Lush feels deserving of a nationwide campaign?

Why only Ireland? Lush has stores in fluoridated America, and has shops in the fluoridated areas of the UK. They also operate in Spain, which has about 10% water fluoridation coverage. And who will be advising on this campaign? I am of course pleased that they have ruled out publicly working with The Girl Against Fluoride folks. Can we have a similar assurance that they will not work together in private? If not them, then who? The only other - let's be charitable - noteworthy fluoridation opponent in Ireland is Declan Waugh. He advised Sinn Féin in their populist and ultimately pointless Dublin City Council move to oppose fluoridation. Would they work with him? A man who seriously entertains the notion of a joint Russian / American global mind control plot?

It's a tangent but I feel I must provide an excerpt from the article Waugh judges 'interesting and rather disturbing':

...pulse-modulated microwaves are efficient carriers for mind control signals ... In short, both the Soviets and American military were running EM experiments on populations – inducing nuclear magnetic resonance in human tissues, increasing cancer rates, and interfering with mental processes.
...
The CIA’s notorious Cold War MK-ULTRA programs have seamlessly morphed into remote electromagnetic mind control that can deliver hypnotism, diseases, and drugs via modulated electromagnetic energy.
...
"Intelligence chiefs are now in seventh heaven. If someone becomes a problem, they park the ‘suicide mind control team’ outside their house. Suicides are easy to explain away. Or they can discredit you by driving you mad by beaming the excitation potential of a pathological mental state at your brain. They place sounds and speech in the target victim’s brain that no one else can hear, called inter-cerebral hearing. This is now common practice. Instead of using excitation potentials, a transducer modifies the spoken word into ELF audiograms that are then superimposed on the pulse-modulated microwave beam. Outside environmental reinforcement via media agents in league with MI5 [UK FBI] assure that the high-profile person’s mind-controlled madness will be put in the worst possible light to discredit them…"

I do admire Lush's commitment to charity. And I do think they make good products. But I can't shop there if they're going to promote this tomfoolery. And I'm truly concerned that they might one day run a campaign in all their Ireland shops to further 'explore concerns' around vaccination. If you feel the same please consider dropping them a polite tweet or leaving a message on their Facebook page.