Open Parachute

Image credit: Do new mothers doing a Ph.D. get enough support? The anti-fluoride movement has certainly mobilised over the neonatal maternal urinary fluoride study which reported an association with child IQ. They see it as the best thing since sliced bread and believe it should lead to the end of fluoridation worldwide. They also seem to be putting all their eggs in … Read More

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Slide number 30 from Paul Connett presentation prepared for a talk at NZ Parliament buildings in February 2018. Continuing my critique of the presentation prepared by Paul Connett for his much-publicised meeting at Parliament Building in February. The meeting attracted only three MPs but his presentation is useful as it presents all the arguments anti-fluoride campaigners rely on at the … Read More

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Yes, I know – everyone’s mind is already made up so participants just talk past each other. People’s positions on this and similar issues have become a matter of identity – people are driven by emotions, not information. But, the information is there – and while I agree many people are driven by emotions they often attempt to use that information to … Read More

First, thanks to Mary Byrne and FFNZ for this response (see Anti-fluoride group coordinator responds to my article). Hopefully, this will help encourage some good faith scientific discussion of the issues involved in my original article (Paul Connett’s misrepresentation of maternal F exposure study debunked). I am pleased to promote such scientific exchange. I will deal with the issues Mary … Read More

My recent article Paul Connett’s misrepresentation of maternal F exposure study debunked got some online feedback and criticism from anti-fluoride activists. Mary Byrne, National coordinator Fluoride Free New Zealand, wrote a response and requested it is published on SciBlogs “in the interests of putting the record straight and providing balance.” I welcome her response and have posted it here. Hopefully, this will … Read More

Anti-fluoride campaigners are misrepresenting a recent Mexican study claiming its findings should cause governments around the world to abandon community water fluoridation (CWF). Their claims are unwarranted because the study has a high degree of uncertainty. Activists are misrepresenting the accuracy of the studies findings. Because Mexico has areas of endemic fluorosis the study itself is not relevant to CWF. Read More

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We have all sat through boring, and counterproductive, PowerPoint presentations. Boring because the presenter breaks all the rule relevant to the preparation of visual displays. And counterproductive because, in the end, the audience does not remember any of the information the presenter attempts to convey. David JP Phillips gives some relevant advice on PowerPoint preparation in the video … Read More

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 Data from Bashash et al., (2017). Despite a statistically significant relationship of child IQ with mothers prenatal urinary fluoride, this explains only about 3% of the huge scatter in the data. I haven’t followed the latest speaking tour of Paul Connett – organised by the local Fluoride Free NZ organisation. But I watched a TV interview with him this … Read More

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Anti-fluoride activists closely follow the publication of results from fluoride studies and react to new scientific papers in one of the following ways: Use it to claim community water fluoridation (CWF) is harmful – even if this requires misrepresentation or distortion of the studies findings (a recent example is the prenatal fluoride/child IQ study of Bashash et al., (2017)  heavily … Read More

As with most of these fluoride-IQ studies this one is only relevant to areas of endemic fluorosis (This is from a UNESCO paper and has been corrected for New Zealand. Identification of fluorosis in a country does not imply the whole country is high fluoride). Yes, it’s a bit like groundhog day. Another fluoride-IQ study – and we expect this to … Read More