Anti-fluoridation activists buy scientific credibility using a predatory publisher

A group of well-known anti-fluoride activists have just published some new research. Well, this is what their social media publicity will tell us.

In fact, this is not new research. It is simply the republication of a shonky paper from two years ago as a  chapter in a book produced by a predatory open access publisher.

It is a clear example of anti-fluoride activists attempting to buy scientific credibility. This book chapter cost them GBP £1400!

The “new” paper, or book chapter, anti-fluoride people will be promoting is this:

Hirzy, J. W., Connett, P., Xiang, Q., Spittle, B., & Kennedy, D. (2018). Developmental Neurotoxicity of Fluoride: A Quantitative Risk Analysis Toward Establishing a Safe Dose for Children. In J. E. McDuffie (Ed.), Neurotoxins (pp. 115–131). Rijeka: InTech.

In fact, this is simply a slight rehash of the paper published 2 years ago:

Hirzy, J. W., Connett, P., Xiang, Q., Spittle, B. J., & Kennedy, D. C. (2016). Developmental neurotoxicity of fluoride: a quantitative risk analysis towards establishing a safe daily dose of fluoride for children. Fluoride, 49(December), 379–400.

Almost word for word. And the authors acknowledge this at the beginning of the chapter with an introductory statement:

” This work has, in slightly different format, form and content been published in the journal Fluoride, Vol. 49(4 Pt 1):379–400, December 2016.”

I guess that saves me the job of critiquing this new version – my analysis and critique of the original paper was posted as the article  Debunking a “classic” fluoride-IQ paper by leading anti-fluoride propagandists. I also discussed the issues in other articles (see Connett & Hirzy do a shonky risk assessment for fluoride, Anti-fluoride authors indulge in data manipulation and statistical porkies, and Anti-fluoridation campaigners often use statistical significance to confirm bias).

I have also submitted for publication a more formal critique of the original Hirzy et al., paper – see Does drinking water fluoride influence IQ? A critique of Hirzy et al. (2016)and  CRITIQUE OF A RISK ANALYSIS AIMED AT ESTABLISHING A SAFE DAILY DOSE OF FLUORIDE FOR CHILDREN.

Perhaps I will just repeat this qualification given by the authors in the first paper (and repeated in the book chapter), as it does call into question the whole campaign against community water fluoridation (CWF). They say:

“However, when comparing a fluoridated area of the USA to an unfluoridated area it would be hard to discern a mean IQ difference, because of the multiple sources of fluoride intake besides drinking water (Table 5). These sources greatly reduce the contrast in total fluoride intake between fluoridated and unfluoridated areas. A very high hurdle is thus created to gaining useful information in the USA, as it was in the New Zealand study [5], via a large, long-range longitudinal epidemiological study of fluoride and IQ.”

They are, in effect, accepting that no study of CWF has shown an IQ effect and argue that such studies will never show an  effect. Because, they argue, there is only a small difference in fluoride dietary intake between children in fluoridated and unfluoridated areas.

The fact that studies show no effect of fluoidation on IQ drives their need to “explain away” these results using dubious estimates of dietary intake. However they are essentially conceding there is no point campaigning against CWF. If they want to stick with their “explaining away” argument then, if anything, they should campaigning against other forms of dietary intake and leave CWF alone.

Scientific credibility

Anti-fluoridationists often argue that they have science on their side – and many of them seem to honestly believe it. Of course, when one is singing to the choir it is easy to delude oneself. The facts are that most claims made by anti-fluoride activists do not stand up to scientific scrutiny and when they cite scientific reports they are usually misrepresenting them.

I just wish these campaigners would sit down and actually read the papers they keep touting – very often they just do not say what is claimed for them.

On the other hand a small number of scientifically dubious papers do make their way into the scientific literature and these get used as “proof” by activists. Usually these are published in poor quality journals (like “Fluoride” where Hirzy et al., originally published their paper) and this is especially true when the authors are known anti-fluoride activists.

So, a combination of misrepresentation of the scientific literature and citation of poor quality papers get churned out again and again by campaigners to give scientific credibility to their arguments.

Shonky publishers

In my article Anti-fluoridation propagandists promoting shonky “review”, I discussed the use of shonky journals by anti-fluoride activists. These are usually open access journals which charge authors for publication and have very poor or non-existent peer review standards. I quoted one commenter as describing these journals as “bottom feeders,” but they, and their publishers, are often simply described as “predatory.”

Some “peer-reviewed” journals really are “bottom-feeders.”

Predatory because these publishers scam researchers and exploit young or naive scientists, often from third world countries, who are impressed by the ease of publication and apparent distinction. An ease which is lubricated by author payments and little or no proper peer review.

Prospective authors can search lists identifying such predatory publishers and journals. So I did my own search and was not surprised to find that the IntechOpen publishers of the Hirzy et al., (2018) book chapter are on such lists. However, even a search of the IntechOpen website and their information for authors showed the signs typical of such predatory publishers. This is what IntechOpen will give you for your money (GBP – see Open Access Publishing Fees):

• £1400 gets you a book chapter;
• £4000 will get you a compact monograph, and
• £10,000 will give you a long form monograph.

So, it looks like Bill Hirzy, Paul Connett, Quanyong Xiang, Bruce Spittle, and David Kennedy had a whip around (probably digging into the Fluoride Action Network funds) and produced £1400 to buy themselves some apparent “scientific credibility.”

I say apparent because more and more readers of scientific literature are becoming aware of the problem of poor quality journals and predatory open access publishers. Rather than providing scientific credibility, publication in such outlets may in fact leave a bad mark on a scientist’s reputation and credibility.

But I guess the politically motivated activists looking to confirm their biases will not care.

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