An organisation I helped found, The Society for Science Based Healthcare, has created an excellent tool for looking at Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) complaints - thanks to Mark Honeychurch. The website looks at all ASA complaints made since 2008. You can see the top complainants, most complained about companies, complaints by product and complaints by media, [...]
Dr. Paul Connett, director of the US anti-fluoride activist organisation Fluoride Action Network (FAN), will be speaking in NZ next week. He is accompanied by Dr. William Hirzy, a staff member of FAN. They will speak at meetings organised by Fluoride Free NZ (FFNZ) – a local activist group affiliated to FAN – in Thames [...]
This is the second time that I've heard someone call "fluoride is rape". This was said from the Fluoride Free NZ Hamilton Coordinator. For those who are against fluoride, do you agree with these strong words? https://www.facebook.com/sillyantifluoridationists/photos/851078804933916/ Personally, I see this choice of words disgusting and sounds like they have no idea on the traumatic effects. [...]
Here in New Zealand anti-fluoridationists continue to attack the statement: that there is '40% less tooth decay, on average, for children in fluoridated areas'. This fact comes from the 2009 New Zealand Oral Health Survey (NZOHS) which had sufficient statistical power and was adjusted for age, sex, ethnicity, and neighbourhood deprivation. There was a New [...]
This is my second response to Associate Professor Rita Barnett-Rose to her paper “Compulsory water fluoridation: justifiable public health benefit or human experimental research without informed consent”. Again I wish to thank Rita for acknowledging in that papers should be referenced accurately by using citations to the original sources rather than simply referring to activist [...]
Associate Professor Rita Barnett-Rose replied back to my critique on her paper “Compulsory water fluoridation: justifiable public health benefit or human experimental research without informed consent”. I like to thank Rita for getting an independent review of her article from several scientists and agreeing that one should use primary research and not advocacy groups. I’ll be doing [...]
I was interviewed on Sunday for the Skepticism Today podcast about fluoridation. Skepticism Today is an hour-long monthly skeptical podcast talk about recent news and events of interest to skeptics – both NZ based and international. Episode 3 has been released today. My interview is at 16:04. Have a listen here. Also for those who [...]
Over the past week, the Advertising Complaints Authority (ASA) has upheld three complaints made against the anti-fluoride group (Fluoride Action Network of NZ) FANNZ. The complaints involved several advertisements authorized by FANNZ and placed in the Kapiti News earlier this year. The Kapiti News stated that it had received many phone calls from agitated members [...]
We had a meeting with FANNZ, after a 3-hour discussion we have finally convinced them that fluoridated water just has fluoride ions and not fluorine (an extremely reactive gas) and fluoride ions are safe to drink at 0.7-1.0ppm. These fluoride ions are the same, natural or otherwise. They apologised for the confusion and have decided [...]
I didn't intend to write another post on this subject so soon after the last one, but a story on yahoo.com's news feed has really annoyed me. I know journalists these days are seriously under pressure, but that doesn't really justify taking a 'press release' from a known activist organisation and running it uncritically ie [...]
