Dr. Paul Connett, director of the US anti-fluoride activist organisation Fluoride Action Network (FAN), will be speaking in NZ next week. He is accompanied by Dr. William Hirzy, a staff member of FAN.

They will speak at meetings organised by Fluoride Free NZ (FFNZ) – a local activist group affiliated to FAN – in Thames (Tuesday 24th February) and Taupo (Wednesday 25th February).

FFNZ will also promote these meetings, and their anti-fluoride message, via media releases and media interviews with Drs. Connett and Hirzy while they are in New Zealand.

Making Sense of Fluoride (MSoF) provides the following background information for news media covering this visit.

Background information on speakers and organisations.

1: FAN is the main U.S. based activist group and is very active in promoting an anti-fluoride message within the US and internationally. It is affiliated internationally to anti-fluoride groups throughout the world, including in Australia and New Zealand.

FAN is organisationally linked to the “natural” health/alternative medicine industry and the anti-vaccination movement through Mercola LLC’s Health Liberty Coalition. It is, at least in part, funded by the “natural’ health industry through the Mercola LLC company. This company also helps fund the anti-vaccination movement.

Mercola LLC reportedly brought in about $7 million in 2010, and has received three warning letters from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for violations of U.S. marketing laws, two of which charged Mercola with making false and misleading claims regarding the marketing of several natural supplemental products, which violated the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act.

FAN promotes its anti-fluoride message through media links to “natural” health/alternative medicine publications and websites and general press releases and articles via its network. It is also very active in reviewing and misinterpreting scientific publications

2: Speaker details:

A: Dr. Paul Connett has a PhD in chemistry. Now retired, he previously worked as a lecturer at St. Lawrence University, USA.

Although presented by his organisation and its local affiliates as “the world expert on fluoridation,” Dr. Connett has no research background in fluoride or fluoridation. His book, articles and presentations are based on his own interpretation (or misinterpretation) of the scientific work of others as presented in the scientific literature. (For example, in 2005 Professor John Spencer of Adelaide University said, “Dr. Connett misrepresents (my) study as an analysis of the benefits of water fluoridation, which it was not. He also misinterprets the study’s indirect evidence on the benefits of water fluoridation on decay.”). He uses these misinterpretations to provide apparent authority to his anti-fluoride message.

Dr. Connett’s only relevant publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals are two letters to the editor and one, as junior author, of a review paper. The senior author of that paper, Anna Strunecká, is an Advisory Board member of FAN.

B: Dr.William Hirzy has a PhD in chemistry. Now retired, he formerly worked as a union official in the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)?

Dr. Hirzy has made statements and submission on fluoride and fluoridation in his role as a union leader. Unfortunately these are often disingenuously presented as representing the EPA and its scientific staff. They do not.

Hirzy’s only publications on fluoride or fluoridation in peer-reviewed scientific journals are two from 2013. The first argued that it is cost-effective to replace fluorosilicic acid as a fluoridating agent with sodium fluoride. The second paper effectively withdrew the conclusions of the first – admitting to a simple arithmetic error producing a 70-fold error in calculated costs which lead to a reversal of his conclusions.

3: Tactics of anti-fluoride activists.

Activist organisations like FAN and FFNZ target local body councils with campaigns to halt community water fluoridation or prevent its introduction using mass submission campaigns with templates provided by organisers. Submissions usually contain cherry-picked and misrepresented scientific citations which can impress and influence councillors who have little scientific background.

These organisations target newspapers with letter writing campaigns which usually attempt to discredit scientific and health organisations and experts.

Dr Paul Connett has made annual summer visits to New Zealand as part of these campaigns.

4: MSoF and contacts for comment

“Making Sense of Fluoride” is an incorporated society, whose main aim is to counter much of the misinformation on the internet and printed media related to community water fluoridation. We are a combination of students, academics and medical professionals advocating that this significant public health initiative be maintained in Australasia given the longstanding scientific consensus on its safety and efficacy.

For comments on the visit of Drs. Connett and Hirzy contact:

Dr. Ken Perrott

Email: [email protected]

5: On-line resources

Review by Royal Society of NZ and the Office of the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor – Health Effects of Water Fluoridation: a Review of the Scientific Evidence

NZ Community Water Fluoridation is Safe and Effective: A critique of Fluoride Free NZ’s criticisms of the NZ Fluoridation Review by Dr Ken Perrott

The Fluoride Debate – Paul Connett and Ken Perrott

Jason M Armfield “When public action undermines public health: a critical examination of antifluoridationist literature“