Unreliable evidence? The closed circle of fluoride advocates.
One of the bodies cited in Al Young's Statement to the Land and Environment Court is ARCPOA, that well-known subsidiary of Colgate-Palmolive, and you should be wary about that Institution's attitude towards water fluoridation. It is the home of some of the principal proponents in the Australian water fluoridation movement, and its Director, Prof John Spencer, is a well-known advocate of fluoridation there.
Prof Spencer has direct links to the UK fluoride cabal here in the UK, at Manchester University He has attended the annual Conference of the our government's spurious fluoride propaganda outfit, the National Fluoride Information Centre (NFIC). Both Colgate-Palmolive and the NFIC have a very close relationship with ARCPOA and the pro-fluoride movement generally in Australia. The NFIC has in the past provided financial support (i.e. the UK taxpayers' money) to Australian delegates to its Annual Conference. An exposure of the NFIC scam is on our popular web page (http://www.ukcaf.org/the_nfic_hoax.html)
(To confirm Prof Spencer's links with the NFIC - just Google 'A J Spencer NFIC' to see the list of references not just to his published papers on the NFIC website, but to material that he has presented personally at these Conferences.)
The present Director of the NFIC is a Colgate Professor of Dental Something-or-other at Manchester University. There seems to have been a close realtionship between Manchester and Melbourne Universities during the student and staff riots in Melbourne over the bankrupting of the University by a former senior member of the staff who is now, apparently,employed at our very own hot-bed of pro-fluoridation activism, Manchester University.
The 'prestigious' H Trendley Dean Memorial Award Prof Anthony Blinkhorn OBE set up, and was the first Director of, the NFI at Manchester, and is now prominent in his evangelising of Australian Townships over to the religion of fluoridation. He was the proud recipient in 2005 of the - and I quote - 'prestigious H Trendly Dean Memorial Award', presented in Brisbane, Australia, and supported by those nice people at Colgate-Palmolive. More recently he 'retired' from the NFIC, although he retains 'an advisory role' in its operations from his new base at Sydney University. He has strong links with the Adelaide University School of Dentistry, and of course ARCPOA, and is exceedingly (or perhaps that should be excessively?) active in spreading fluoridation to the caries-ridden masses in Australia.
This may give you a clearer idea of just how tightly this whole fluoridation hoax is actually controlled to protect the Holy Brand of Fluoride by the vested interests of the toothpaste manufacturers. The work that H Trendly Dean published, and that set the scene for the modern-day ubiquity of fluoride contamination, has been dismissed by Mark Diesendorf in the Journal 'Nature' for its
virtual absence of quantitative, statistical methods, their nonrandom method of selecting data and the high sensitivity of the results to the way in which the study populations were grouped (http://www.fluoridealert.org/health/teeth/caries/diesendorf.html)
In other words, the data were selected to support the theory that fluoride works, all inconvenient evidence was discarded, and the statistical analyses - at least, what there were of them - were scientifically naive and fixed to hide any discrepancies! Now honestly - is that the sort of award that you would like to be given?
Don't mention fluorosis!
One of the activities of ARCPOA is to publish the results of surveys of dental health in Australian States. These are remarkable for one thing above all others as far as the anti-fluoride protest movement is concerned - there is a complete absence of reference to dental fluorosis, the most common dental disease in Australia. For example - just a random selection, the first one to hand - see 'Oral Health in South Australia 2004' (http://www.arcpoh.adelaide.edu.au/publications/report/population/html_files/sa2004.pdf) - in this publication the word 'fluorosis' does not appear at all.
To be fair, ARCPOA does publish research that mentions fluorosis - for example see 'Oral health-related quality of life, fluorosis and caries among children.' L Do* and AJ Spencer (http://www.arcpoh.adelaide.edu.au/publications/Presentation/html_files/iadr2006_do.html) But even this needs to be treated with - well let us simply say a certain degree of caution. The authors (including our old friend, Prof Spencer) conclude that fluorosis is viewed by kids as a desirable condition -
"Caries and malocclusion showed negative impact on child and parental OHRQoL (oral health-related quality of life) indicators while mild fluorosis had a positive impact."
The extraordinary claim that kids prefer teeth that have the opacities of dental fluorosis, because they look whiter, is becoming the dental sector's panic reaction to the adverse publicity that fluorosis is now getting. Fluoride researchers appear to have got this result by asking their test subjects for their opinion about fluorosis before telling them exactly what the condition really is and how it can affect teeth in later life. That seems to me just a little a bit like the British Fluoridation Society's favourite wheeze - trying to drum up support for fluoridation by asking the totally unacceptable and invalid leading question in public opinion polls in the UK - "Are you in favour of water fluoridation if it prevents tooth decay?"
Is fluoridation based on scientific fraud? Well that depends on what you think constitutes scientific fraud? Here's a short summary - you can judge whether it is a factor in the spread of unaqcceptable pro-fluoridation propaganda.
If medical information released by any person or body that the public may be expected to accept as an authority on a specific subject is used by fluoridation proponents to promote their bid to add fluoride to public water supplies, then any apparent bias in the way that it reports - or indeed, fails to report - the prevalence and implications of dental fluorosis needs to be considered for its admissibility in evidence. In extreme circumstances, if an information source is presented in such a way that it might be interpreted as constituting intent to deceive or mislead, then an action for fraud could even be contemplated.
So, for a general test that may be applied to any public document or scientific publication or statement that may affect medical health, the following issues should be subject to scrutiny. A document, opinion or statement may be regarded as being fraudulent if it fails to comply with any or all of the following criteria:-
It may be fraudulent
1) by deliberate omission of any material fact that is relevant to a balanced understanding of the issues raised. The selective use of evidence relating to only one side of an argument - the 'Devil's Advocate' approach - may be acceptable in ordinary recreational debate, but cannot be permitted when issues of actual public safety and welfare are under discussion as matters of fact.
2) by deliberate misrepresentation, if it presents arguments regarding factual material that is designed to mislead the reader/listener, or misrepresents the views of the person(s) carrying out or publishing the statement or opinion that is being quoted in argument.
3) by breach of a Duty of Care if it leads to the deception of the reader/listener, or to neglect of the welfare and well-being of such person(s). This applies especially to issues of medical practice (including dental practice), including both physical interventions and the establishment or implementation of public policies.
Is fluoridation subject to the rules covering clinical research?
The issue needs to be raised as to whether or not fluoridation of public water supplies may be regarded as clinical research, and not merely dismissed as 'a necessary public health measure'. In the circumstances in which it is employed, and in view of the its disputed efficacy and safety, its continued promotion and implementation must be regarded as clinical research albeit on an almost unprecedented scale, and therefore subject to the constraints governing the experimental exposure of the public to a pharmacologically active substance. This issue appears not to have been recognized by the dental or public health sectors, and consequently may have serious legal implications. This is especially the case in view of the well-known very high prevalence of adverse side effects that always accompany fluoridation, and the apparent deliberate concealment by those promoting the practice of the inevitability of an epidemic of dental fluorosis in every fluoridated community.
If water fluoridation is imposed on a community with the objective of achieving a specific medical effect, then it is a medicinal intervention. As such it is subject to medicinal legislation. It is almost invariably planned to compare the results of this intervention with data from the same population before the intervention, or of comparing the result on the health of the community with that of other communities that have or that do not have water fluoridation. There are therefore three stages in the process - first the assessment of the existing pre-fluoridation prevalence of dental caries. This is followed by the implementation of the intervention procedure. Finally, after the lag phase of the response to treatment, the medical effects are monitored.
By any definition, this process constitutes clinical research and as such must, by law, be subject to the extremely stringent constraints and procedures that are demanded for all such trials. I have seen no evidence that public fluoridation schemes have been, or are being, carried out under those protocols that have been designed specifically to protect the public from such abuse.
Indeed, due to the vast scale of such trials, there is absolutely no possibility of controlling for confounding factors, or of even monitoring the most fundamental variable involved - that of the dosage of 'fluoride' in its various forms to which the subjects are actually exposed. It is therefore utterly impossible to devise any procedure that would permit such trials to be carried out in a scientifically valid and ethically acceptable fashion.
Absence of public consent and the liability of fluoridation proponents. In any such trial, the fully informed consent of every subject participating in the research is mandatory - to proceed without written consent could be viewed by a Court to constitute medical assault. Should the intervention result in the development of a predictable but undisclosed adverse effect resulting in actual physical damage to the subject, then that would constitute assault causing actual bodily harm. In most legal codes such actions are subject to action in the Criminal Courts; they may also be subject to legal action for medical damages in the Civil Courts..
In addition, the quality of any investigatory research that it is proposed to carry out must be subject to strict medical and ethical scrutiny by a qualified Medical Research Ethics Committee. The circumstances under which subjects are to be exposed, the dosage regimes to be used, and the protocols for establishing the medical responses of the subjects must all be fully specified in advance. Full details of how the trial is to be monitored, and on what evidence the baseline status of each individual involved will be assessed, must be fully established. And the Committee must be satisfied that the results of the trial will be assessed using appropriate protocols of statistical analysis. And as in every authorized medical trial, it is an absolute requirement that any person participating must be able to withdraw their consent at any time, without fear of suffering from delayed or future adverse reactions, and without having to provide any reason for their terminating their participation
In the case of fluoridation, the entire process of 'monitoring' is totally worthless. For example, the delayed eruption of children's teeth in fluoridated communities invalidates the comparison of same-age children - 'researchers' appear to believe that the prevalence in same-age children is of more validity that the prevalence of caries in same-age teeth. The invalidity of this improper statistical analysis of the data was exposed by Ziegelbecker over forty years ago, and its continued rejection by pro-fluoridation proponents can now only be regarded as deliberate scientific fraud.
The issue of Professional Indemnity Insurance for those prescribing fluoridation.
The legal position of any health official effectively prescribing by endorsement, recommendation or order, to any individual or organization responsible for administering these unlicensed substances to the public, is extremely precarious. The restrictions on the clinical use of any unlicensed medicinal substance impose very severe constraints on the circumstances under which they may be used, and there is strict liability on the prescriber for the welfare of every one of their subjects.
They are personally liable for any medical damages that may result from their action, and those medical insurance companies that provide Professional Indemnity Insurance for members of the health profession require that in every case in which an 'off-label' drug is administered the practitioner must inform them in advance of their intent. It is also a strict requirement that administration of the substance must cease as soon as the treatment is completed or has no further prospect of being beneficial (even assuming that it actually works, of course).
Health professionals, or their employers, should therefore hold urgent discussions with their insurers to establish just what liability they may be incurring should they decide with medicinal intent to order the administration of unlicensed fluoridation chemicals to very large numbers of individuals. Their targets are in fact already the patients of other medical and dental practitioners, of all ages and medical conditions, and have in many cases specifically withheld their consent to the proposed intervention. The implications for medical insurers of such unfortunate activities by their dental clients are truly awsome!
What to do next.
Given the extent of the legal improprieties of the dental and health sector, legal practitioners may be interested in considering whether past and current fluoridation interventions have been compliant with relevant clinical research ethics and procedures. Many local communities have been fluoridated and then subjected to monitoring and analysis by dental researchers. If, as I have suggested, this could be viewed as constituting clinical research trials into the use of these unlicensed medicinal substances, then it would be prudent for objectors to check out the exact situation with respect to Australian legislation and precedent relating to fraud, medical interventions and the ethical regulation of medical and clinical research. It may be apparent that the way in which information has been used by fluoridation proponents to persuade or force the public to be subject to fluoridated water supplies constitutes a violation of one or more of the fundamental principles governing the performance and monitoring of medical interventions on the general public.
I have found that, once lawyers get involved, enthusiasm for fluoridating public water supplies tends to evaporate even more quickly than water spilled on a hot pavement! For example, the case of the Southampton Judicial Review on what 'consult' actually means in English law has had an amazingly inhibitory effect on the vigor with which fluoridation is being promoted here in the UK.
My latest review of the 'Catch 22' legal situation in which English water providers now find themselves (see our web site front page article 'Criminalizing the water sector. Why the English fluoridation legislation must be repealed' - http://www.ukcaf.org/) is quietly working its way into the boardrooms of our timorous water companies. They have so far tried to sit firmly on a very shaky fence over the issue of fluoridation, largely, I suspect, because my legal challenges are so well-founded. They are hoping that the government and the people will battle it out between themselves, and leave them out of the arguments - but the arguments are now being taken up my members of the public and forcing company chairmen to consider their own positions much more carefully.
So, all power to the elbows of those taking action against The System! I look forward to hearing the results of your legal challenges in due course - this is the only truly effective way to bring a halt to this discredited practice. My own submission to Rous Water is, of course, just a small part of the resources that are now becoming available to you all, but the above notes may also be of interest to them or others who may be considering challenging the Big Brother State.
Also, do check out my commentary on the conclusions of the EU expert Scientific Committee on Health and Environmental Risks of water fluoridation (SCHER) - on our front page (http://www.ukcaf.org/). It's extremely relevant to all that you are doing in Oz, as it is yet another wedge driven into the claim that fluoridation works - SCHER has actually said that fluoridation is
'A crude measure of systemic fluoride treatment . . . without a detectable threshold for dental and bone damage.'
Think about that for a second - a medical 'treatment' that has no discernible threshold at which it has causes adverse effects is hardly something that any responsible society can permit. It entirely challenges all those medical standards and ethics that are normally applied by society for the protection of vulnerable members of the community from avoidable risks of harm. The implications of this SCHER decision are astounding, and you can't get a much clearer condemnation of water fluoridation than that! The maverick 'experts' who recommend this practice need to be rooted out and put where their disgraceful behavior is no longer a threat to the well-being of the rest of the community.
