At first, it sounded like the plot of a particularly funny episode of the “Big Bang Theory”…

An “angel healer” with no scientific education, stripping off her clothes in the front of Dáil Éireann to highlight that there is a worldwide conspiracy to poison the population via municipal water fluoridation.

A conspiracy that asserts that a few medium-sized fluoride supply companies have succeeded where Big Oil and Big Tobacco have failed and managed to fool and/or compromise the world’s scientific researchers.

Aisling Fitzgibbon aka The Girl Against Fluoride (TGAF) is as the name suggest, Ireland’s most prominent anti-fluoridation advocate and a close associate of leading anti-vaxxers and MMS advocates.

As publicity stunts go, this one was particularly effective; the “sex sells” media happily facilitated her as she endeavoured to set back the cause of feminine equality just a small bit that day.

Now cheap sexually exploitative publicity stunts are nothing new, but one done in the name of a cause that denies basic factual science is a new one on me.

Call us intellectual snobs but we in the scientific community expect reasonable and logical arguments when it comes to scientific debate, not this!

Fluoride occurs naturally in water and many countries regulate this level up or down to a level that gives a best dental effect of between 40 to 67% fewer cavities.

Other countries add fluoride to salt, flour, UHT milk, give regular dental rinses or use fluoridated bottled water but the system used in Ireland is considered best practice.  It is a public health preventative measure that costs about €1 per person and saves an estimated €200 per year in dental costs.

70 years of its practice around the world has proven it to be safe and the World Health Organisations have called it one of the greatest public health initiatives of the twentieth century.  The science on it is settled, there is no debate among reputable scientists.

Scaremongering about it began in the 60’s, believed to be a communist plot and it was famously satirised in the classic Stanley Kubrick movie “Dr Strangelove”.

The advent of the internet reignited this conspiracy theory but this time the villain was “Big Pharma” (despite the fact that most if not all Pharmaceutical companies have no business interest in fluoride).

A conspiracy theorist will tell you to “follow the money” and if you do you will soon discover that billion dollar snake oil “natural medicine” companies are behind most of these and many other pseudoscience websites.

Chief culprits are websites like Naturalnews.com, the Fluoride Action Network and Mercola.com which in between the scaremongering will try to sell you water filter systems and cure-all for cancer, AIDS, Ebola etc.

Unsurprisingly these websites also spread anti-vaccination scare stories and advocate MMS treatment to “cure” autistic children.  The obvious base motivation here is to make massive profits from gullible people.

If you similarly “follow the money” of the Irish anti-fluoride lobby, the same motivation is also apparent, one notable Irish anti-fluoridationist operates a water “consultancy” service and flogs his book which blames fluoride for every disease and ailment known to man.  (Real scientific researchers publish their research in peer-reviewed journals, not on Amazon.)

Similarly The Girl Against Fluoride cashes-in by getting kickbacks from Reverse Osmosis Water filters sellers, her quack alternative health practice and her “naked” calendar.

Recently she has increased her qualifications by becoming a so-called “GAPs Nutritionist”.  As comedian Dara O’Brien put it – “A Dietician is to nutritionist what a dentist is to a toothologist” and anyone can claim to be one as it is an unprotected title.

The GAPs part of the title is short for “Gut and Psychology Syndrome”.  This is a made up ailment that no reputable doctor recognises.  Its Russian inventor has also (in a possible world first) patented the disease which means only gullible people who pay for this “qualification” can diagnose and cure it.

Unsurprisingly, all these pseudoscience groups are inextricable linked, prominent anti-vaxxers and MMS supporters regularly appear together at events advocating each other’s causes. Indeed The Girl against Fluoride has stated that after she gets fluoridation stopped, she will target vaccinations.

If you are unfamiliar with MMS. It stands for Miracle Mineral Solutions, is a 40% bleach solution and claimed to be a “cure” for Aids, Ebola, cancer, homosexuality, autism and everything else you can think of.  It was invented by a breakaway of the Scientology cult and its leader claims to be a billion-year-old alien.  It would make you laugh except people are giving this poison to autistic children in order to “cure” them.  It is administered in oral and enema form and it dissolves the gut lining, it is child abuse plain and simple.  As usual, it is the most vulnerable who suffer in this madness.

If TGAF ever succeeds in banning fluoride and vaccinations then what?  Maybe she’ll campaign to ban the contraceptive pill which her mother (and manager) believes causes homosexuality.  In her case, I am definitely blaming the parents!

Even the use of Reverse Osmosis water can be harmful as in it increases the leaching effect of water thus removing lead from pipes and nutrients from boiled food and the body.

What is even scarier is that this lobby has gained influence on the political front and not just from fringe political groupings like Direct Democracy Ireland, but also previously with the Green Party and currently with Sinn Fein.

It is a scary thought indeed that Sinn Fein does not seem to have one person among their ranks that can advise them to what the scientific facts are.  When the Green Party was in power, the end of fluoridation was John Gormley’s pet project and a biased report written by him was shelved when saner people realised what unscientific nonsense it was.  Will we be so lucky if and when Sinn Fein get into power and if not, will this start a slippery slope of pseudoscience and scaremongering winning over scientific reason and logic?

You may say no, of course not, saner heads will prevail, but recently the United States Congress voted to deny the factual scientific reality that is climate change. They did this because so-called “Big Oil” has managed to convince an unscientifically educated public that it doesn’t exist despite what the overwhelming majority of scientists say.  With a few notable exceptions, Irish scientists are remaining silent while the conspiracy nuts scream and shout.   Maybe they are just too busy or maybe they are just bad at publicity.

Maybe I should do a striptease in front of the Dáil……….

……………On the other hand maybe not

 

This guest blog post comes from Kenneth Mitchell B.Eng., H.Dip. M.Sc., C.Eng.
Ken is a Chartered Chemical and Environmental Engineer and is accredited by Engineers Ireland (unlike Declan Waugh). He lives in a negative equity two-bed mid terrace house in an unfinished estate in Kildare Ireland which he pays for by being a big pharma shill.