Thousands of rigorous studies – including recent large-scale data from Sweden and Canada (as well as our own famous Dunedin Study) confirm that community water fluoridation improves oral health and has no detrimental effect on IQ.

Making Sense of Fluoride President Daniel Ryan is spreading that message to counter the misinformation of anti-fluoride activist Paul Connett who is currently touring the country.

“Paul’s up to his old tricks of trying to confuse the public with shonky information,” says Mr Ryan. “This time he’s armed with a study carried out in Mexico that’s been criticised for basic flaws; for example, not identifying where the participants got their drinking water and not considering other risk factors. The Mexican study simply cannot be compared to community water fluoridation in New Zealand.”

“What’s more,” says Mr Ryan, “Lead authors of that study have gone on the record supporting fluoridation. This shows Connett’s claims to be nonsense.”

“Paul Connett relies on the lack of expertise of the media and the public to promote an ideological view that denies the evidence. Compare that to the overwhelming scientific consensus that fluoridation is an effective way to improve the dental health of children and adults.”

“We encourage anyone dealing with Paul Connett to be skeptical, question his sources and not to take his claims at face value,” says Mr Ryan. “And above all, be assured that community water fluoridation is safe.”

For more information please contact:

Dr Ken Perrott
Science adviser, MSoF
Ken.perrott@msof.nz

Daniel Ryan
MSoF President, MSoF
Daniel.ryan@msof.nz

Edit: Corrected link to the Canada study.

The post Activist Spouts Nonsense – The Evidence Supports Fluoridation appeared first on Making Sense of Fluoride.

With a new study from Canada showing that when water fluoridation stops there is an increase of cavities, a few polls have recently popped up on news sites around this topic. It appears that this study has annoyed a lot of the anti-fluoride groups around the world, and they are making sure people vote.

There are three main polls going around currently, in four articles:

• CBC News Saskatchewan – Public not demanding fluoride, Regina mayor says
• CTV News Calgary – Study shows dental health in Calgary children suffering from fluoride cessation
• CBC News Saskatchewan (again) – Fluoride in the water supply: where do you stand?
• The Calgary Sun – Higher Calgary rate of childhood tooth decay linked to absence of fluoride (poll closed).

Here are screenshots from a small sample of anti-fluoride Facebook pages from the 18th, 19th and 20th of February, all asking people to vote in these polls. Note that a good proportion of these groups are not based in Canada:

Some pages just can’t get enough of these polls. Within 48 hours, Fluoride Free Lethbridge had posted four times to get people to vote:

Has their mad frenzy of voting been worth it?

• The poll from CBC “Is it safe to add fluoride to the drinking water supply?”, shows “No” at 55%.
• The poll from CTV News “Should city council reintroduce fluoride to Calgary’s drinking water?”, shows “No” at 39%.
• The poll from Calgary Sun “Did city council make the right move when they ceased water fluoridation?”, shows “Yes” at 59%.

They are barely ahead on two out of three of these polls, and behind on the third (two polls are still open at the time of writing). Will people (other than anti-fluoridationists) take these polls seriously? I doubt it.

The post Exposing poll abuse from anti-fluoridationists appeared first on Making Sense of Fluoride.