This is a quote from a review by David Locker from the University of Toronto. He did it with the Ontario government. He wrote, “ The magnitude of [fluoridation’s] effect (he means benefit) is not large in absolute terms, is often not statistically significant, and may not be of clinical significance.”
Now, I want to talk about the Queensland Scam. You’ve seen the data, now I’m going to look at the scam, the politics. In 2006, the current premier of Queensland resigned, and a new premier was appointed, Anna Bligh. One of the things that she did when she came to office was to instigate mandatory fluoridation for the whole of Queensland even though communities in Queensland had fought and fought to keep fluoridation out of their communities, particularly Brisbane. With one stroke with a built-in majority in the Parliament, she got mandatory fluoridation in.
This is what the Queenslanders, the citizens, were told by their government. Queenslanders were told that fluoridated Townsville had 65% less tooth decay than non-fluoridated Brisbane. You might be wondering what they mean by 65% less tooth decay. Sounds big doesn’t it, 65% less tooth decay? Alright, let’s have look at the table from which this was taken. By the way, they ran full page ads: This glass of water could protect your smile; in Townsville, water has been fluoridated since 1964, resulting in 65% less tooth decay in children than those in Brisbane.
Here’s the paper. Here are the statistics. You notice that they’ve selected one year only, seven-year olds. Decayed, missing, and filled surfaces in Townsville, fluoridated, 0.09 DMFS. Tooth decay in Brisbane, 0.26 DMFS. This is just for seven-year olds. That is a 65% difference, but notice that the absolute saving here 0.17 of a tooth surface.
Now, imagine they were running full page ads in Queensland saying if we fluoridate Queensland, we’re going to save 0.17 of a tooth surface. Do you think people would have been impressed with that? I don’t think so, but the arithmetic is correct. This is how they do it. You subtract 0.09 from 0.26. That’s o.17 DMFS. You divide by the tooth decay in Brisbane which is 0.26 and multiple by 100. That’s 65% fewer tooth surface decayed, but again, the absolute saving is 0.17 DMFS. It’s worse than that, this is an absolutely outrageous example of cherry picking the data.
Supposing they had looked at nine-year olds. Look over here for nine-year olds. Its 0.41 DMFS in Townsville. It’s 0.51 DMFS in Brisbane. The difference is 0.1 of a tooth surface, and now the percentage difference is 20%. So, it’s the vagueries of comparing these small numbers arbitrarily selected.
Yes? [Inaudible 34:40] Do you think it’s fair then to pull out just the numbers for seven-year olds? [Inaudible 35:00] Well, I think that you would be obliged if you’re going to pull out 65% to make it very clear that you’re talking about only seven-year olds, not give the impression that this is all your kids having that reduction.
Now, even more blatant. This is what our teeth look like if they’re exposed to fluoridated. This is what teeth apparently look like if they’re exposed to non-fluoridated water. Now, this is so incredibly crude. It’s Aurelian [35:53]. It really is. Do you think that the difference between those two sets of teeth is 0.17 of a tooth surface? No, this is blatant propaganda, absolute blatant propaganda, and this not coming from industry. This is coming from tax-paid civil servants, and let’s get one thing clear.
Civil servants should not be spinning the literature. Civil servants should be presenting to decision makers objective analysis, a careful balance of the science of both sides. It’s a decision maker. If there’s going to be any spin, it’s going to be from politicians because everybody knows the politicians spin everything, but we’re paying civil servants for something different. They get large salaries, and I think it’s time that we created a fuss.
All the attention is on politicians. Politicians are corrupt. Politicians are lying, but underneath these politicians are these slimes, these faceless people who are, for whatever reasons, manipulating science to serve a political agenda. That’s not their job.
Now, let’s look at the New Zealand Scam. I will take your question later. Let’s look at the New Zealand scam because we’re going to see that the launching of fluoridation in New Zealand was a fraud. Was Rap Mann [37:33] here today? No, he was here last time. The Hastings-Napier Trial which launched fluoridation in New Zealand started in 1954 and ended in 1964. Now, here’s a letter written by the director of the Division of Dental Health. I’m assuming that this is the federal government here, but I stand to be corrected. His name is Leslie.
Okay, starting from the second paragraph:
No one is more conscious that I am for the need for proof of the value of fluoridation in terms of reduced treatment. It is something which has been concerning us for a long time. It is only a matter of time before I will be asked questions, and I must have an answer with meaning to a layman or I am going to be embarrassed and as is everyone else connected with fluoridation. But it is not easy to get. On the contrary, it is proving extremely difficult. Mr. Espie is conferring with Mr. Beck and Mr. Ludwig and I am hopeful that in due course, they will be able to make a practical suggestion.
I will certainly not rest easily until a simple method has been devised to prove the equation fluoridation equals less fillings.
Now, notice the date. This is 1962, October of 1962. This is eight years into this famous trial. It’s been going on for eight years in 1962. It’s due to end in two years, and they’re still looking for evidence that fluoridation actually reduces tooth decay according to this letter.
So, how did they pull it off? John Colquhoun from Auckland found out. He said:
Before the experiment they had filled his decayed teeth with any small catch on the surface, before it had penetrated the outer enamel layer. (In other words, they were filling indentations, essentially.) After the experiment began, they filled and classified as decayed, only teeth with cavities which penetrated the outer enamel layer. It is easy to see why a sudden drop in the numbers of decayed and filled teeth occurred. This change in method of diagnosis was not reported in any of the published accounts of the experiment.”
In other words, the 60% drop in tooth decay reflected an artifact that they changed the method of diagnosing. They had already dropped the control city. They dropped Napier within one or two years of the start of the trial. So, what they were left with was comparing tooth decay in the beginning and at the end, and they changed the diagnosis in the middle. That is the study that launched fluoridation in New Zealand. Incredible. Based on fraud.
Now, studies in New Zealand. Dr. John Colquhoun published many papers. Bill Wilson is a colleague of his, sitting in the front row, and I’ve never been impressed with a scientist my whole than John Colquhoun. He had been had been a principle officer of Auckland. He had been a councilor of Auckland, and in both positions, he avidly promoted fluoridation and very successfully. So successful, in fact, that in 1980, his bosses sent him on a world tour to collect more evidence that fluoridation worked.
He went to Australia. He went to Asia. He went to North America. He went to Europe. Behind the scenes, to his utter dismay, the researchers were telling him, “John, we can’t find a difference between the tooth decay in fluoridated and non-fluoridated communities.”
He came back crestfallen to New Zealand, and waiting for him, on his desk, was a report marked confidential. That report was survey of tooth decay for the whole of New Zealand, and John went carefully through it. It essentially found the same thing that there was little difference in tooth decay between the fluoridated cities and the non-fluoridated cities in New Zealand. If anything, the tooth decay was a little bit better in the non-fluoridated communities than the fluoridated ones.
So, this man had the courage from being an avid promoter of fluoridation to becoming, for the rest of his life, trying to undo the damage that he had done. Just like Robert Oppenheimer, he found that when he was presenting evidence that supported what his masters wanted, he was a hero, but the moment that he started presenting information that did not support what his masters wanted, he became the villain. He steadfastly stuck to this effort.
In fact, he was part of the task force that went to Lord Mayor of Brisbane. He was on that task force, and John was able to persuade even the pro-fluoridation people on that task force to oppose fluoridation. So, run the clock forward, Betty De Liefde, in 1998, described the difference tooth decay in the permanent teeth between fluoridated and non-fluoridated communities in New Zealand as “clinically meaningless”.
Now, there’s been a very important study from Iowa. This is the famous Iowa study where a huge amount of US government money is going to studying children’s teeth from the moment they’re born through. This was a study of children from zero to nine years.
What they did in this study no one has done hitherto. They actually measured the amount of fluoride the kids were ingesting, not whether they lived in a fluoridated community or non-fluoridated community, but actually how much fluoride they were ingesting. They found no relation between tooth decay and the amount of fluoride swallowed, ingested. This is what they actually said: “These findings suggest that achieving a caries-free status may have relatively little to do with fluoride intake, while fluorosis is clearly more dependent on fluoride intake”.
One of the things they set out to do was to define the optimal level of fluoride that you needed to fight tooth decay. They couldn’t do it. They could not define what an optimal level of fluoride was from this experiment.
Now, I presented this paper last time I was here in April of 2011, and after I left, Dr. Robin Whyman who’s the chief spokesman for the pro-fluoridation movement in New Zealand prepared a response to my presentation for the National Fluoridation Information Service. This is the propaganda machinery set up by the Ministry of Health to push fluoridation throughout New Zealand, a dependent from a tax like mine. This is what he said, “Professor Connett’s highlighting of the conclusion from Warren et al 2009 that there was no relationship between fluoride ingested and tooth decay levels is unsurprising. It is generally accepted that the principal caries protective effect from fluoride is topical.” Precisely, Dr. Whyman, precisely.
Swallowing fluoride doesn’t do any good. Fluoride works on the surface of the teeth. I’m glad you recognize that Dr. Whyman, but shouldn’t that be the reason why you stop putting fluoride in the drinking water and focus on topical applications?
Even the promoters of fluoridation, not just Robyn Whyman but the Center of Disease Control in the United States, have admitted that the dominant beneficial action of fluoride is topical not systemic . In other words, it works on the outside of the tooth enamel, not from inside the body. So, why swallow fluoride and expose every tissue in the body to a known toxic substance when you can brush it on and spit it out? Can we leave the question on until the end because I’m going to use up too much time. Why put it in the drinking water and force it on people who don’t want it?
By using universally available fluorinated toothpaste, you avoid the medical issues and the ethical problems of not forcing it on people. When the CDC admitted in 1999 that the predominant benefit of fluoride was topical, it should have ended fluoridation there and then. At this point, you could see the difference between science and politics. The science says it’s stupid to continue, but the politics says keep going, keep crossing the Big Muddy, the big fool says push on, according to Pete Seeger’s song’s about Vietnam.
This is what Arvid Carlsson said about the revelation that the benefits are topical. Arvid Carlsson is the scientist who led the successful campaign against fluoridation in Sweden in the 1970s. He said, “In pharmacology, if the effect is local (i.e.topical), it’s awkward to use it in any other way that as a local treatment (as a topic treatment). I mean this is obvious. You have the teeth there, they’re available for you, why drink the stuff?”
