A royal blunder

A royal blunder

The Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor and the Royal Society of New Zealand admitted yesterday, Thursday 15th January, that a serious blunder had been made in their report “Health effects of water fluoridation: a Review of the scientific evidence”.

A new version[1] is available on the Royal Society’s website where an error message now states that fluoride exposure studies found an IQ reduction of one statistical ‘standard deviation’, not one ‘IQ point’ as previously asserted.

One standard deviation equates to a drop of about seven IQ points but, unbelievably, the conclusion of the first version of the report that “this is likely to be a measurement or statistical artefact of no functional significance” has remained in the revision. Why?

“This is far from insignificant” says Kane Titchener, Auckland representative of Fluoride Free New Zealand. “Any loss of IQ is a concern for both parents and society at large. Most parents have no idea that their children are receiving unmeasurably high doses of fluoride through fluoridation and other sources. For example bottle fed babies receive at least 150 times more fluoride than their breast fed counterparts.”

Last year, an article[2] by world renowned neurodevelopmental toxicologists Philippe Grandjean and Philip Landrigan published in the prestigious medical journal, The Lancet, classified fluoride as a neurotoxin like other known neurotoxins such as lead and mercury.

An international critique[3] of the PMCSA/RSNZ report was released on the 1st of December 2014 which pointed out its many errors. This no doubt led to the correction of the report’s most obvious mistake.

Such a fundamental error highlights the fact that the Report was hurriedly drafted and little more than a piece of health establishment PR rather than an independent review of research on fluoride’s adverse health effects.

ENDS

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