Search Results for: Health and Medicine

Embarrassing knock-back of second draft review of possible cognitive health effects of fluoride

This is rather embarrassing for a US group attempting to get the science right about possible toxic effects of fluoride. It’s also embarrassing for the anti-fluoride activists who have “jumped the gun” and been citing the group’s draft review as … Continue reading

Debunking a “classic” fluoride-IQ paper by leading anti-fluoride propagandists

Anti-fluoride groups and “natural”/alternative health groups and websites are currently promoting a new paper by several leading anti-fluoride propagandists. For two reasons: It’s about fluoride and IQ. The anti-fluoride movement recently decided to give priority to this issue in an attempt to get … Continue reading

Fluoridation & democracy: Open letter to DHB candidate Andrew Buckley

Community water fluoridation looks like becoming a hot topic in October’s elections to District Health Boards. Anti-fluoride candidates should stop preventing open discussion and critique of their unscientific claims. Legislation transferring fluoridation consultation and decision-making tasks from councils to district … Continue reading

Big business funding of anti-science propaganda on health

Most readers are aware the fossil fuel industry finances the spreading of doubt about climate change science. But people are less aware of the role played by the “natural”/alternative health industry in promoting doubt about the science of health issues. Author … Continue reading

The Alternative Medicine Racket

We are so used to the bad press that pharmaceutical companies and the health service get that it is worth standing back and having a critical look at what the “natural”/alternative health industry gets up to. And that is not … Continue reading

Calcium fluoride and the “soft” water anti-fluoridation myth

Concepts of “natural” and “unnatural” or “artificial” ( or even “industrial”) fluoride often come up in the fluoride debates. Some fluoridation opponents claim “natural” calcium fluoride is quite safe, maybe even necessary for the body, but “artificial fluorides” are toxic. For … Continue reading

Social health policies, freedom of choice and responsibility

Social health policies inevitably raise the issue of the individual’s freedom of choice. While debates around these policies often concentrate on questions of fact, scientific consensus and reliability of evidence, these tend to be surrogates for the underlying values issues. To … Continue reading

Fluoride and heart disease – another myth

Here is another anti-fluoride rubber duck which keeps surfacing – the myth that cardiovascular disease is “linked to” fluoride. This myth relies on misrepresentation of a study reported in Nuclear Medicine Communications 2 years ago. The paper is Li et … Continue reading

Welcome counter to scientific and health misinformation

Anti-fluoridation activists work very hard to propogate their misinformation. Letters to the editor, Facebook, Twitter and blog comments. At times their material will dominate google searches. No wonder the layperson can be confused, or even influenced by some of this … Continue reading

Is fluoridated water a medicine?

One of the predictable claims made by anti-fluoridationists is that fluoridated water is a medicine and therefore should not be imposed on the public. It’s all semantics, of course, but some anti-fluoridationist get pretty dogmatic about it. So the people … Continue reading