Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Prominent Fluoridation Opponents Enjoy Drinking Fluoridated Water

Screenshot of fluoride content of San Pellegrino, 0.6 parts per million.Fighting against a cheap and effective healthcare strategy is thirsty work. What better way to relax than by pouring yourself a nice tall glass of fluoridated water?

Not from the tap, of course. For these special occasions you should turn to San Pellegrino. Crisp, refreshing, and served in an iconic tinted glass bottle, you'll be relieved to hear that it contains 0.6 parts per million fluoride. Sit back, take a well earned break from opposing the 0.7 parts per million fluoride in Irish tap water, and enjoy the one part in ten million difference.

Don't let your hard work claiming that fluoride causes everything from man flu to the black death prevent you from drinking the stuff. In fact, if you've claimed that fluoride causes depression, and claim that you cured your own severe depression by eliminating fluoride, you should probably drink even more fluoridated water.

What better way to toy with people's genuine mental health issues than to encourage them to cease medication in favour of an evidence-free crackpot scheme that you won't even follow yourself?

This I feel must be the logic of Aisling FitzGibbon, aka The Girl Against Fluoride, a highly qualified angel healer, proponent of 'curing' autism rectally, and adviser to Sinn Fein on matters of public health. Pictured to the left we see a screenshot of her ink361 page, proudly displaying a book of grain, lactose and refined sugar free recipes alongside her San Pellegrino.

Next we see writer, restaurant critic and Michelin star winner Paolo Tullio. Thankfully he has not offered to manipulate angel healing rays on our behalf, but he has issued a video saying he believes fluoridation may be dangerous. He then calls on the Irish government to end the practice. His primary reasoning seems to be that his home tap water smells of chlorine.

Fearing that fluoride is dangerous, and opposing the government's fluoridation programme, is it safe to assume he avoids parting with coin for high fluoride San Pellegrino?

Let us read some of his reviews:
"Although a bottle of still water was on the house, both Rocco and I wanted sparkling, so we added a bottle of San Pellegrino to our drinks order."Paolo Tullio at La Dolce Vita, Dublin 18 
"Two bottles of San Pellegrino and a bottle of Peroni beer completed our order."Paolo Tullio: Oliveto The Pavillion Complex, Dun Laoghaire 
"There were a few wines under €30, but the bulk of the list falls into the €35 to €55 range. I chose a decent Pinot Grigio, which was listed at €33. We also had two large bottles of San Pellegrino at €5 each."The Exchange Restaurant
I tweeted Tullio on the topic and he was kind enough to reply. He seems a decent sort, but rather confused on the area - he thought Ireland was the only country in the world to fluoridate, compared the chlorination of water to drinking bleach, and said he boiled Italian tap water because of the smell of chlorine. He has accomplishments in many fields, I just don't reckon science is one of them.

So why include him on this rather short list? Well, if opponents of water fluoridation have no problem with drinking fluoridated water, maybe we should wonder if their claims are worth entertaining.

Thursday, November 6, 2014

Sinn Fein Takes Health Policy Advice From Vaccine Opponents

"Drugs are overprescribed... One reason for inappropriate prescribing may lie in the opaque relationship between the medical profession and the pharmacuetical [sic] industry. Major pharmaceutical companies, such as United Brands, sponsor medical conferences for doctors in luxury hotels. Moreover, there are no restrictions on general practitioners or hospital consultants investing in shares in the pharmaceutical or other healthcare industries or in private hospitals or clinics. The conflict of interest between the doctor as healer and the doctor as drug manufacturer needs to be recognised."
The above pastiche of distrust and conspiracy comes not from an angel healing periodical but from Sinn Fein's health policy. Do read the whole thing if time allows. You will find no attempt to balance talk of financial irregularities in luxury hotels with promotion of best medical practice. There is no paragraph suggesting that your local GP is likely a decent sort, or that their offer of a flu jab may not be linked to a clandestine conspiracy.

Regular readers of this blog - a long-suffering and doubtless weary troop - will know that I've something of an interest in anti fluoridation campaigners in Ireland. An entry on Sinn Fein is therefore predictable - they've been tying up valuable county council time with anti fluoridation motions in Dublin and Cork, blithely ignoring that councils have no power to make such decisions. Their minister for environment, community and local government tried for a bill to have it banned. Why does Sinn Fein feel such rancour towards an intervention supported by the nation's medical and dental communities? The matter is hardly opaque. Six million English citizens drink fluoridated water, the rest do not. It is a simple effort to contrast the fluoridated and non fluoridated areas of our neighbours. Indeed I felt certain that Sinn Fein would leap at an opportunity to support a measure that leads to a 28% reduction in tooth decay for children in disadvantaged areas while nearly halving tooth decay related hospitalisation of children under five, but it seems they jumped the other way.

Have the boffins in Sinn Fein's underground laboratory make a game changing discovery? Has there been an explosion of new research that only they are publicising? Or are they merely casting aside best evidence and community benefit in favour of a populist publicity stunt?

To answer my question we must look at those who answers the questions posed by Sinn Fein. And who better to elucidate than Brian Stanley TD, spokesperson on Environment, Community and Local Government, who last year attempted to cease fluoridation?
"I am delighted to have two leading campaigners in Leinster House adding weight to our campaign. Both Aishling Fitzgibbon, aka Girl against Fluoride, and leading environmental scientist Declan Waugh." - Brian Stanley
This seems the total of his outside support. Stanley eschews the temptation to promote style over substance and introduces Aisling FitzGibbon first. Her credentials are impressive: as a Master Integrated Energy Therapist she has paid for a certificate that enables her to redirect healing angel rays into people's pets. For the right price she will 'cure' your vulnerable child of autism through a regimen that includes pumping bone broth up their anus. Naturally she opposes vaccination, describing it as her next step once fluoride is vanquished.

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Armaggedon, The Young Earth, And The Cancer Cure Suppressing Freemasons

Most evenings I pass a brace of Jehovah's Witnesses outside a GPO. For comic juxtaposition they place themselves to the left of a statue of Cú Chulainn lashed to a tree stump, ready to attack all comers until his death. The Jehovah's Witnesses give a warmer welcome and are sometimes willing to discuss their organisation's worryingly regular habit of announcing the imminent end of this mortal realm.

Proceeding a figurative hop, skip, and jump will often land me next to Dessie. He's a likeable chap who considers the earth to be at most 11,000 years old. On past occasions I've met Hare Krishnas who sought to dissuade me of my heliocentric beliefs. Let us say that it is a vibrant marketplace of ideas where any viewpoint can be expressed without falling prisoner to the confines of reality.

It was there (where else?) that Immuno Biotech chose to plant a stall emblazoned "Cancer Cure". The subtext is "The Cure They Don't Want You To Have!" At this point I must make my apologies for the quality of the image. You see, my camera hand is as shaky as the claims of their salesperson Mike. [Edit: better shot by @pedView. Second edit: New shots by me taken two days later.]

Saprophyte. Festering pustule on the rectum of humanity. Mike.Dross and drivel in higher resolution.
And what claims they make!
"If you keep to the protocol[€450 for 8 doses], it [their snake oil] usually eradicates stage 4 cancer in a year."
There is no such thing as stage five cancer: stage four is the deformed pinnacle of what tumours can throw at us. The chances of surviving a half decade with almost any type of stage four cancer is below 30%. If Immuno Biotech had a product that could 'usually eradicate' all forms of cancer we would hold feast days in their honour. I would cast aside my keyboard and plug in a prayer mat, and doctors would learn their trade in institutions named to immortalise its founder.

Instead they have a limited number of glossy pamphlets, a name that calls to mind bad science fiction, and a stall of lower quality than a neighbouring group who believes that dinosaur bones are intended to test our faith.

Let's look at how they attempt a shroud of respectability: