When the doors to Hamilton’s first Carl’s Jr. franchise finally swung open on a dreary autumn day in 2013, I made my way to the first available counter and ordered up my own grease filled fantasy. I grinned as a bubbly Waikato Times journalist (a high school friend) approached and remarked, “I didn’t think you’d do it, the first customer in Hamilton! I guess we’ll have to make a celebrity out of you,” all the while barely controlling her laughter. Indeed, for the next few days, I was somewhat of a minor Facebook celebrity as the story began to circulate among friends, students and otherwise bored and easily entertained Hamiltonians.

 

With the exception of those that abstain from meat for ethical or cultural reasons, the act of revelling in fast food folklore would probably be considered a rather innocuous pastime of a graduate student with too many spare hours in a day. After all, as skeptics, what else we choose to pursue in our spare time is hardly as important as the research we cite or write, right?

Well, maybe or maybe not. I, for one, have a growing feeling we need to seriously reconsider how we approach public engagement, who we approach, and what we present them with. Google-proficient anti-fluoridationists have also enjoyed my Carl’s Jr. adventure, although for different reasons. But their cynical take on my stunt – copying and pasting the article each and every time we cross paths on the internet – should give some necessary pause to our current approach.

 

The pretext to this view is derived from what we’ve recently digested in the field of political psychology. Nythan’s paper Effective Messages In Vaccine Promotion: A Randomized Trial (2014) lends to the hypothesis that individuals are even less likely to adjust their pre-existing world views in the light of new evidence. As I flicked through the paper I found myself nodding as I recalled numerous instances where, as a society, we had attempted to correct the misinformation online regarding water fluoridation, only to find that the person presenting such information becomes even more enamoured with pseudo-scientific beliefs.

 

Freelance political philosopher Eric Hoffer referred to those persons with rigid and polarised views as ‘True Believers’. Indeed, I would contend that opponents of water fluoridation are the gold standard of true believer, and like the aforementioned anti-vaccinator, they’re increasingly likely to dig their heels in when faced with conflicting evidence. Which perhaps suggests that engaging with them is practically useless, unless our engagement is accessible by those who are yet to develop an opinion on the matter and have a sufficient level of scientific literacy.

For the anti-fluoridationist, ‘minor’ details matter little. It does not matter that I acknowledged my choice of burger was an artery thickener any more than when Harvard researcher Anna Choi publicly stated that her meta-analysis into the neurotoxicity of fluoride was not related to community water fluoridation.

 

Referenda in Hamilton, Whakatane and Hastings, despite all returning a positive outcome for water fluoridation policy, have all had one other common theme: low participation. It’s perhaps this frontier, those non-voters, rather than the True Believer, that deserve a greater level of attention by skeptics, particularly as low participation rates can often produce undesirable electoral results.

Political scientist Philip Converse first introduced the concept of a ‘non-opinion’ after an analysis of electoral surveys in his seminal work The American Voter. The varying degrees of a ‘non-opinion’, according to Converse, often make up the majority of the electorate. The non-opinion is someone who will either not vote or not strongly consider the candidate or subject matter before voting. In the instance of water fluoridation, it could be someone who has not been sufficiently compelled to seriously consider the argument being made before them. Later research, in particular that by Conover and Feldman theorised that the non-opinion is susceptible to four categories:

• Existing position
• Ideology predisposition
• Party cues
• ‘Candidate’ Characteristics

 

Call me a pessimist, but I would be inclined to argue that carefully explaining to a ‘non-opinion’ that hydrofluorosilicic acid dissociates in water and becomes the fluoride ion, the same fluoride ion found ‘naturally’ in New Zealand waterways, is about as useful as explaining to a bunch of young parents the complexities of ethnic rivalries among Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in the Central Asian Plateau. A complete lack of literacy in the most basic principles of toxicology (existing position), borne in part out the of the dismantling of compulsory science education in senior high school has made even the most nuanced discussion about ‘how things work’ the modern-day pipe dream of science communicators.

 

In his blog Dr Ken Perrott, science advisor for Making Sense of Fluoride, has sought to neutralize the ideological predispositions of anti-fluoridationists, pointing out that ‘choice’ can indeed be exercised and the provision of a ‘social good’ (such as a reduction of tooth decay via water fluoridation) is part of the very fabric of a modern progressive society. Furthermore, it’s perhaps quite remarkable that no political party currently represented in the New Zealand parliament has opportunistically latched onto an opposition of community water fluoridation.

This then leaves the skeptic with only one remaining consideration when engaging a non-opinion: candidate characteristics. Skeptics have a long and proud tradition of pointing out fallacious arguments as an important fundamental of critical thinking. An ad hominem based on someone’s circumstances, even their penchant for a delicious burger, is clearly a fallacious argument. But to dismiss the relevance of someone’s extra-curricular activities in the court of non-opinion would be to deny the ability of an emotional argument to trump a rational one.

So let them talk about my/our affection for burgers, let’s not rise above it, let’s not sit on our pedestal and point out an error in reasoning. We can leave that to our academic institutions and our government agencies. As skeptics, let’s remind the public of where the greater level of credibility can be sought. Aisling Fitzgibbon (The Girl Against Fluoride) is a ‘qualified’ angel healer with a marketing strategy that involves stripping down to her underwear during protests; and Paul Connett is a retired professor who accepts funding from an internet entrepreneur who also just happens to sell water filters and fluoride-free toothpaste and claims that cancer is a fungus that can be cured with baking soda. Enough said.

 

Politics is no respecter of rationality. It’s an often arbitrary process of deciding “who gets what, when and how”. Helping those with no opinion identify the characteristics of those at the forefront of anti-fluoride movements is often the single most useful tactic we will ever have at our disposal.

[sudden infant death syndrome], seizures, allergies, asthma, autism, diabetes, and meningitis. The posting was introduced on Ms Fitzgibbon’s Girl against Fluoride Facebook page by the alarming sentence: “Vaccines are so last year.”

 

I need hardly add that not a single one of Ms. Fitzgibbon’s outlandish anti-vaccination claims are even remotely true. One might be tempted to give Ms Fitzgibbon some benefit of doubt upon learning that she is a qualified therapist but alas, her therapy skills relate solely to the manipulation of one’s angels (it’s often called Angel Healing) whom, it is said, she can persuade to act positively on one’s behalf. She also recently acquired the status of an alternative lifestyle “GAPS” nutritionist. Her qualification came courtesy of a correspondence course offered by a Russian doctor, Natasha Campbell-McBride, who is not qualified to practice in Europe, or the USA.

 

Campbell-McBride has nonetheless managed to discover a new disease she calls “Gut and Psychology Syndrome” (GAPS). Unusually, Campbell-McBride has registered the name of the newfound disease as a trade mark, something I’ve never encountered before in many years of writing about science and which probably means nobody else can offer a competing cure, no matter how effective. For fear of being held in breach of copyright by her I’ll very briefly list some of the diseases she claims her diet can treat. They include autism, ADHD/ADD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, depression and schizophrenia. I’ve yet to encounter any medical specialists who agree with her unique methods (but if you know of any do please let me know).

 

But back to Paul Connett. On his Fluoride Action Network website he publishes what he calls the “largest scholarly database for fluoride related contaminants.” However using it we failed to unearth any of several Irish studies which confirmed fluoridation posed no health risk.

 

Connett’s database greatly misrepresents the limited science it does present. An example is a doctoral thesis by a young US scientist called Bassin who discovered what she thought was a link between fluoridation and osteosarcoma, an extremely rare bone cancer in males. As doctoral theses often are, this was described by some as an “exploratory” study. Even Bassin herself admitted that the link might be tenuous because she could find no similar association in females and said it required further research. Subsequent research in the US, and also in Ireland, has failed to support her contention and concluded there is no link between the two.

 

However, the Fluoride Action Network went into typical “Shoot the Messenger” mode and, while it continued to praise and promote Bassin’s now firmly rebutted research, accused the lead researcher on one study disproving Bassin’s thesis of massive breaches of scientific ethics. Another even more convincing 2011 osteosarcoma study, by Kim et al, also failed to find an association between osteosarcoma and fluoridation, in addition to another 11 studies which also failed to find any link with fluoridation. But Fluoride Action Network says Kim merely “purported” to find no association and then went on to complain about things it said should have been studied instead. Not only does Connett assassinate the messenger, he manages to convincingly muddy the waters too.
And so it goes.

 

It has been said that restricting the flow of external information to one’s adherents is one of the hallmarks of a cult.
You might say that, but I couldn’t possibly comment.

 

Gerry Byrne,
Science Journalist

PS: I shortly hope to deal with Mr Boyden’s recent points in another email.

 

APPENDIX

Dr. Joseph Mercola has been the subject of a number of United States Food and Drug Administration Warning Letters related to his health advocacy activities:

02/16/2005 – Living Fuel RX(TM) and Coconut Oil Products – For marketing products for a medical use which classifies those products as drugs in violation of 201(g)(1) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.[51]

09/21/2006 – Optimal Wellness Center – For both labeling / marketing health supplements for purposes which would render them to be classified as regulated drugs as well failing to provide adequate directions for use upon the label in the event that they were legally sold as drugs.[52]

03/11/2011 – Re: Meditherm Med2000 Infrared cameras – For marketing a telethermographic camera for medical purposes which have not been FDA approved.[53]

12/16/2011 – Milk Specialties Global – Wautoma – Failure to have tested for purity, strength, identity, and composition “Dr. Mercola Vitamin K2” and others.[54]