Preliminary results. Click to enlarge.

Waikato University student Luke Oldfield was awarded a summer research grant to establish what role vested interests in the natural health industry had played in Hamilton City Council’s fluoride tribunal process. The project is called “Public Integrity and Participatory Democracy: Hamilton City Council’s Water Fluoridation Decision“. This evening he displayed a poster(above) to an audience of academic faculty sharing some preliminary results of his research.

One staggering statistic among these findings was that approximately 2/3 of all written submissions were directly or indirectly provided by parties associated with the ‘natural health’ lobby. No wonder why some anti-fluoridationists didn’t want this research to be done and calling it “bogus research” before results released.
Luke will be using the data to inform a broader discussion about abuse and misuse of democratic process in the provision of public health policy, which is the focus of his Masters dissertation.

The post Abuse of democratic process in Hamilton Tribunal? appeared first on Making Sense of Fluoride.

“I attended the free public lecture by Dr Graham Saunders, senior lecturer in inorganic chemistry at Waikato University, last night, titled “Fluoride, Friend or Foe?” which was sponsored by the Waikato branch of The Royal Society of NZ. Despite constantly assuring his audience that his area of expertise was restricted to the chemistry of fluoride (which cannot be disputed), he regularly strayed dangerously off that path onto the “pro-fluoride” bandwagon and showed himself to be obviously well out of his depth when questioned further on dental and medical issues by some of the more qualified members of the audience.”

In fact, Dr Saunders was meticulously careful to acknowledge where his expertise stopped. On at least 2 occasions other audience members gave additional information relating to questions asked by others. He also – as is his right as an expert in the area of fluoride chemistry – pointed out where this had been misrepresented by those opposing fluoridation.

“I was even more astounded to hear Dr Saunders’ reply when he was asked if he had taken part in the Council-run fluoride tribunal in May this year. He replied that no, he had not been consulted, which had really annoyed him and that he had since contacted the council to complain about it. Is Dr Saunders arrogant or just ignorant?”

Dr Saunders is neither arrogant nor ignorant of this issue, & his answer was more complex than it has been represented by Pat. He made it clear that he was concerned that the University’s scientists had not been asked to provide expert opinion to the Council (& in fact a question from the floor asked him specifically – were you asked to provide advice?), but that he had made a personal written submission to the tribunal. He was not able to attend the actual hearings given other prior commitments, and yes, given his inability to attend he had expected that the Council might have contacted him to discuss some of the points that he made in his written submission.

“Surely Dr Saunders is aware that the council had very publicly advertised the tribunal and had asked for written and oral submissions from any person or organisation that had an interest in the issue. All were accepted, read and analysed and the council decision was based on this evidence by a vote of 7/1.”

See above. He was aware and made that written submission.

The post Fluoride Free Hamilton misinformation on Dr Saunders talk appeared first on Making Sense of Fluoride.

If you missed the Stuff news story, you can read about it here.

Dr Ken Perrott wrote a story on this, showing screenshots of the discussions and how Roger lied to his face.

Dr Alison Campbell from the Waikato University also wrote an article about this.

Fluoride Free Hamilton released a statement, basically saying they have nothing to do with Roger:

“Let it be known that the email sent to the Chemistry Dept of the University of Waikato by Roger Stratford was not authorised by Pat McNair or anyone from Fluoride Free Hamilton or FANNZ. Roger has no authorisation to speak on our behalf or to advise anyone what our policies or strategies may be or to seek guidance or advice for us, from anyone, on future public discussions or any other matters.

Please note that we are not wanting to constrict the fluoride debate and definitely do not agree with Roger. We are happy to debate the science of fluoridation any time.

Fluoride Free Hamilton has no official membership at all. In fact Roger Stratford has never worked on any Fluoride Free Hamilton campaign, has never met us or been involved in any way with our group of supporters. He also has no way of knowing what the consensus of opinion is with our group of supporters so he certainly cannot say he represents us.

The Waikato Times has been asked to print a public retraction of the article in tomorrow’s paper.”

As you can see there was no public retraction of the article. If you look at the screenshots (or the actual link to the post), no one actually had a problem with what Roger said. He seemed to be an active member of their group commenting.

Roger Stratford posted a comment on the above stuff news article:

“Much of modern science is value-laden, no less so than that of fluoridation science. We are not considering The Laws of Thermodynamics here, which are immutable. I certainly do not oppose the facts of science being aired, but encourage this in the appropriate forum. The opinion pieces in the morning paper over breakfast table is not the proper place for lecture material to be aired, that venue belongs to the lecture theatre or lab. The Chemistry Department, of which I am an avid supporter, may feel out of its comfort zone with the politics mused in my email, but no less so than the lay person feels out of his/her comfort zone with the jargon of fluoridation science. How can we reasonably expect the layperson to assess lecture material, which takes years of training, to assess their position on the referendum? That position should be based on the credibility and reasonableness of each sides’ presentations and arguments. I encourage you all to listen to the arguments of the anti-fluoride groups with an open mind and vote according to the way you see fit. I will vote against fluoride being added but you will have to make up your own minds. Good luck!”

If you wondering what Roger was talking about when he said, “The opinion pieces in the morning paper over breakfast table is not the proper place for lecture material to be aired”. He was talking about this in the paper pages 10 and 11.

On his “Roger Stratford for Hamilton City Council” page, he said he will be pulling out, so one less anti-fluoridation person on the council:

“…But I’m pulling out anyway. I’m not receiving the level of support I was hoping for, nor any backing from existing councillors. Have posted up my profile statement. What this means for the community is that Hamilton can look forward to the return of fluoridated water to drink and Auckland’s anti-fluoride campaign will become unhinged. It was nice while it lasted, I’m sure you will agree…”

 

2018 update:

Roger Stratford has gotten in contact with us to tell us his side of the story.

“My original comments on Hamilton Fluoride Free Facebook page were an impromptu response to an over-enthusiastic member. After 10 minutes I resolved to remove them from my server, due to their provocative nature, however, changed my mind and left them there due to unexpectedly positive feedback from leader Pat McNair and other members.
Most of my local election opposition came from Antifluoridationist elements, despite myself publicly advocating their cause through the newspapers. I wanted to publicly debate the issue with a chemistry academic, so I emailed the departmental secretary at my alma mater university. The one proviso being that I alone would be able to bring in supporting texts. The academic would be confident enough in his knowledge not to require this. Unfortunately, this turned sour when the Waikato Times got involved due to a claim from some nutter privately messaging me on Facebook, claiming I had ‘led’ (sic) to him.
In truth, I had tried to set up a meeting with the chemistry department so that between us we could work out a common group of shared beliefs between the two opposing sides in the debate. Presented with the mutually accepted scientific facts, members of the public would be in a better position to decide their own positions in the upcoming fluoridation referendum. It was and remains my belief that these chemists have an inherent conflict of interest over fluoridation since it occupies their subject area, hence their accusations of pseudoscience over public opposition.
There was no intent to ‘silence’ science on my part, rather to simplify science for the voting public, so that they could choose where the greater strengths of argument lay.

R. Stratford,
BSc (Waikato).”

 

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