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The fallout from the article is particularly harmful in Calgary, the academics said, where it’s being cited as reason not to resume water fluoridation eight years after the city ceased adding fluoride to tap water. (Calgary city council is holding a public hearing on fluoridation Tuesday).

Till told the Post that under no circumstances could she share the raw data, because it doesn’t belong to her. Rather, it belongs to a Canadian biobank containing more than 200,000 biological samples taken from thousands of mothers who gave birth between 2008 and 2012. Generally, the biobank is available to researchers in Canada, or outside Canada, so long as the data remain in Canada, Till said.

Till said she hired a PhD student to run “every single diagnostic test she could” and even offered her a bonus if she could find an error. Till has also been publicly posting answers to questions about the study on a free and open platform for research collaboration.

I care about effects that we cannot treat. At least with cavities you can treat them

The psychology professor has been accused of being anti-fluoride. Till said she is nothing of the sort. “We’re scientists. We let the data tell us the story and still people don’t believe it.” Till’s group has published a new study linking fluoride exposure to an increased risk of ADHD in Canadian youth. She has another paper close to being accepted, this one looking at babies fed formula made with fluoridated versus un-fluoridated tap water.

“As a neuropsychologist, I care about brain development, I care about effects that we cannot treat. At least with cavities you can treat them.”