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]]>They will speak at meetings organised by Fluoride Free NZ (FFNZ) – a local activist group affiliated to FAN – in Thames (Tuesday 24th February) and Taupo (Wednesday 25th February).
FFNZ will also promote these meetings, and their anti-fluoride message, via media releases and media interviews with Drs. Connett and Hirzy while they are in New Zealand.
Making Sense of Fluoride (MSoF) provides the following background information for news media covering this visit.
Background information on speakers and organisations.
1: FAN is the main U.S. based activist group and is very active in promoting an anti-fluoride message within the US and internationally. It is affiliated internationally to anti-fluoride groups throughout the world, including in Australia and New Zealand.
FAN is organisationally linked to the “natural” health/alternative medicine industry and the anti-vaccination movement through Mercola LLC’s Health Liberty Coalition. It is, at least in part, funded by the “natural’ health industry through the Mercola LLC company. This company also helps fund the anti-vaccination movement.
Mercola LLC reportedly brought in about $7 million in 2010, and has received three warning letters from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for violations of U.S. marketing laws, two of which charged Mercola with making false and misleading claims regarding the marketing of several natural supplemental products, which violated the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act.
FAN promotes its anti-fluoride message through media links to “natural” health/alternative medicine publications and websites and general press releases and articles via its network. It is also very active in reviewing and misinterpreting scientific publications
2: Speaker details:
A: Dr. Paul Connett has a PhD in chemistry. Now retired, he previously worked as a lecturer at St. Lawrence University, USA.
Although presented by his organisation and its local affiliates as “the world expert on fluoridation,” Dr. Connett has no research background in fluoride or fluoridation. His book, articles and presentations are based on his own interpretation (or misinterpretation) of the scientific work of others as presented in the scientific literature. (For example, in 2005 Professor John Spencer of Adelaide University said, “Dr. Connett misrepresents (my) study as an analysis of the benefits of water fluoridation, which it was not. He also misinterprets the study’s indirect evidence on the benefits of water fluoridation on decay.”). He uses these misinterpretations to provide apparent authority to his anti-fluoride message.
Dr. Connett’s only relevant publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals are two letters to the editor and one, as junior author, of a review paper. The senior author of that paper, Anna Strunecká, is an Advisory Board member of FAN.
B: Dr.William Hirzy has a PhD in chemistry. Now retired, he formerly worked as a union official in the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)?
Dr. Hirzy has made statements and submission on fluoride and fluoridation in his role as a union leader. Unfortunately these are often disingenuously presented as representing the EPA and its scientific staff. They do not.
Hirzy’s only publications on fluoride or fluoridation in peer-reviewed scientific journals are two from 2013. The first argued that it is cost-effective to replace fluorosilicic acid as a fluoridating agent with sodium fluoride. The second paper effectively withdrew the conclusions of the first – admitting to a simple arithmetic error producing a 70-fold error in calculated costs which lead to a reversal of his conclusions.
3: Tactics of anti-fluoride activists.
Activist organisations like FAN and FFNZ target local body councils with campaigns to halt community water fluoridation or prevent its introduction using mass submission campaigns with templates provided by organisers. Submissions usually contain cherry-picked and misrepresented scientific citations which can impress and influence councillors who have little scientific background.
These organisations target newspapers with letter writing campaigns which usually attempt to discredit scientific and health organisations and experts.
Dr Paul Connett has made annual summer visits to New Zealand as part of these campaigns.
4: MSoF and contacts for comment
“Making Sense of Fluoride” is an incorporated society, whose main aim is to counter much of the misinformation on the internet and printed media related to community water fluoridation. We are a combination of students, academics and medical professionals advocating that this significant public health initiative be maintained in Australasia given the longstanding scientific consensus on its safety and efficacy.
For comments on the visit of Drs. Connett and Hirzy contact:
Dr. Ken Perrott
Email: [email protected]
5: On-line resources
Review by Royal Society of NZ and the Office of the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor – Health Effects of Water Fluoridation: a Review of the Scientific Evidence
NZ Community Water Fluoridation is Safe and Effective: A critique of Fluoride Free NZ’s criticisms of the NZ Fluoridation Review by Dr Ken Perrott
The Fluoride Debate – Paul Connett and Ken Perrott
Jason M Armfield “When public action undermines public health: a critical examination of antifluoridationist literature“
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The authors of the NZ Fluoridation Review are correcting a few mistakes in the report which slipped through proof-reading.
I described one of the mistakes in my blog article “Did the Royal Society get it wrong about fluoridation?”
This is little more than a “typo” where the words ‘one IQ point’ had been wrongly substituted for ‘one standard deviation.’ Anne Bardsley, from the Office of the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor, tells me
“The corrected version will be uploaded shortly with a note to this effect on both the Royal Society and PMCSA websites.”
Local anti-fluoride activists had made a lot of this mistake – as had the “great man” Paul Connett – in their attacks on the review. If anything this showed that they had not read past the executive summary because the body of the review presented it correctly.
It is pathetic when critics have to rely on attacking typos in their critiques of a serious scientific review. Now even that has been taken away from them.
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]]>However, his lack of checking must have left him with a red face the other day when he claimed that the abstract of a paper had been changed to hide the dangers of fluoride!
Trouble is – he was confused and was actually looking at two completely different papers!
They were:
- Lennart Krook and Ronald R Minor (1998) FLUORIDE AND ALKALINE PHOSPHATASE, Fluoride 31(4), 177-182
- Khokher MA1, Dandona P (1990).Fluoride stimulates [3H]thymidine incorporation and alkaline phosphatase production by human osteoblasts. Metabolism. 39(11):1118-21.
No wonder the abstracts were different!
Oh well, I guess it is easy to confuse “Krook” and “Khokher” when you are so busy cherry picking and confirming one’s bias that checking and understanding is the last thing on your mind.
Still, it’s a warning isn’t it. This self-proclaimed “Scientist and fluoride researcher” really has no understanding of research – or even how to read scientific papers.
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The post US elections show majority support for fluoridation appeared first on Making Sense of Fluoride.
]]>Perhaps this result is partly due to the activity of pro-science groups who have become active of late. Maybe the success of anti-fluoridation activists in precious years has resulted in a fight back. Let us hope so.
Some results:
Boyne City, Michigan – 68% support for fluoridation
Bronson, Michigan – 63% support for fluoridation
Kalama, Washington – 73% support for fluoridation
Saline County, Kansas – 67% support for fluoridation
Healdsburg, California – 68% support for fluoridation
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]]>The post Trouble makers complaining about the costs of their own troublemaking appeared first on Making Sense of Fluoride.
]]>The council had said “Costs for council to reintroduce fluoride is $100,000, which has been considered as part of Council’s annual budget round.” So it is budgeted – but the details are interesting.
“to be financially prudent and conservative ahead of any decision, $100,000 has been added to the 2014/15 budget for both the operational costs ($50,000) of re-commencing fluoridation and anticipated legal costs.”
So operational costs are as before (about $48,000 per year) but $50,000 has been put aside for the anticipated legal costs.
These are costs which could be incurred because of Fluoride Free’s threatened legal action. Action which has no chance of success after the High Court judgement.
So we have the trouble makers complaining about the costs of their own troublemaking!
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Readers will recognise this graph – similar ones are always being presented to argue that there is no difference between improvement in oral health of people in fluoridated and unfluoridated countries. This one is from Connett’s book and he says of it “there is little obvious difference in the rate of decline in tooth decay in these eight countries.”
Putting aside all the problems of confounding effects anti-F people ignore with such plots his claim is just hand waving. He does nothing to test his claim and yet it would be so easy – measure the slopes of the plots for each group of countries. Despite the huge problems of the data I did this and found the slope of decay rates was -0.13 for the unfluoridated countries and -0.17 for the fluoridated.
That represents an extra decline in decay rates for fluoridated countries of around 30%. Now that doesn’t take account of the improvement in the earlier times before data was taken. So it under-represents the true improvement due to fluoridation.
So be careful of Connett’s hand waving. Even with the crappy data and confounding effects his plots actually don’t say what he claims.
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]]>The post Silver lining appeared first on Making Sense of Fluoride.
]]>So news of that decision has led to all sorts of activity defending good science. In some ways it is very similar to the way that climate scientists and their supporters have eventually organised to fight back against the highly organised and well-financed climate change denial machine.
This fight back against the anti-fluoridationists has taken a variety of forms ranging from institutional organisation around the referendum down to individual activity. An important tool has been online social media like blogs, Twitter and Facebook – venues which until recently the anti-fluoridation groups have dominated. It is heartening when googling now to see that Fluoride Alert does not have the dominance it once had – especially in New Zealand.
Facebook groups like ours are an important part of this fight back. There are several other Facebook pages playing a similar role in NZ, but I think more will develop internationally. An example I saw today was a new Facebook group formed in Lethbridge in Canada to fight a local campaign. Very new but a good start.
See:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/627025914004854/
http://ldskeptics.ca/2013/09/28/pro-fluoride-petition-planned/
So thank you FANNZ, Fluoride Free Hamilton and all your supporters. You may have pulled the wool over the eyes of the Hamilton City Council and won a single battle in Hamilton with the fluoride “tribunal” but you have given New Zealanders a needed wake up call. Basically you are responsible for the fact that people are fighting back and supporting good science.
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“He put at least 6 people to sleep”. Click to read article.
It’s been a fine afternoon in Hamilton so I thought I would wander in to the Fluoride Free Hamilton Information meeting. Should have known better.
Didn’t stay long as the chairman announced first thing that the audience had to remain quiet during the meeting, no heckling or questions were allowed – anyone with a question had to write it down and hand to an organiser. A few of us gasped “What, no questions or comments from the floor?” The chairman responded – “Last warning” – this would treated as a disruption and we would be thrown out.
So I left. No point really. This wasn’t an “information meeting” it was a propaganda meeting – in the Stalinist mould.
On the way out I told one of the organisers this was a highly unusual procedure for an information meeting. She assured me that if I wrote down my question I would get a chance to ask it. I picked up the pen and paper, whereupon another organiser assured me that a written question might be read out to the audience by the chairman and the panel would comment. However, no member of the audience could ask their own question or respond to answers.
Seems incredible, but it is consistent with the way Fluoride Free bans comments on their Facebook pages. But it really is hypocritical for them to then moan because the DHBs refuse to “debate” them. And for them to turn up to DHB meetings, as they did in Hastings, to ask questions.
It really also puts those commenters here who ally with Fluoride Free in an ethically awkward position. We welcome their questions and comments (as long as there is no abuse or harassment). Perhaps they should have a word to the Fluoride Free people.
Oh well, a wasted Sunday afternoon. But every cloud has a silver lining – I did manage to get in a good walk – and that has been difficult lately with the rain and the World Cup races.
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The anti-fluoride activist organisations just don’t take kindly to open discussion and having their claims challenged. Fluoride Free Hamilton had originally allowed comments on the event page for the upcoming “information” meeting with “informed” dentists. They have now closed it because they found contributions from science-minded people intolerable.
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This is a figure from the US National Academy of science publication “Earth Materials and Health: Research Priorities for Earth Science and Public Health.” This lists fluoride (F) as one of the trace elements “considered essential for human health and metabolism.”
The upper figure indicates the pattern of harm and benefit as the intake of the element is increased for an essential element. This is the pattern we see for fluoride in its effect on bones and teeth. These are harmed at deficient concentrations but high concentrations can become toxic or lethal. (We start to see fluorosis etc.) Fortunately the concentrations used for water fluoridation are safe. But opponents of fluoridation will often quote studies covering higher concentrations and claim the toxic effects observed will occur with fluoridated water – quite dishonest.
The lower figure is a typical pattern for non-essential elements – and this is the pattern observed with fluoride for situations other than bone and teeth. Many of the biological effects seen with chronic fluoride toxicity will demonstrate that pattern. Again anti-fluoridationists will often cite studies in the toxic and lethal range and claim, dishonestly, they apply to the normal safe range of fluoridated water.
The upper figure indicates the pattern of harm and benefit as the intake of the element is increased for an essential element. This is the pattern we see for fluoride in its effect on bones and teeth. These are harmed at deficient concentrations but high concentrations can become toxic or lethal. (We start to see fluorosis etc.) Fortunately the concentrations used for water fluoridation are safe. But opponents of fluoridation will often quote studies covering higher concentrations and claim the toxic effects observed will occur with fluoridated water – quite dishonest.
The lower figure is a typical pattern for non-essential elements – and this is the pattern observed with fluoride for situations other than bone and teeth. Many of the biological effects seen with chronic fluoride toxicity will demonstrate that pattern. Again anti-fluoridationists will often cite studies in the toxic and lethal range and claim, dishonestly, they apply to the normal safe range of fluoridated water.
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