Government MPs call anti-fluoridation activists “experts”

Stuff reports:

The Prime Minister has been forced to clarify Labour’s stance on fluoridation, after it was confirmed two Government MPs plan to host an anti-fluoride group at Parliament. 

Prominent US anti-fluoride campaigner Paul Connett is understood to be briefing MPs at Parliament in the coming weeks, hosted by Labour backbencher Duncan Webb and NZ First MP Jenny Marcroft.

It’s one thing to host such a group, but the invite describes him as an “expert”. Open Parachute has many posts debunking his hysteria. Basically he paints fluoride as a toxic poison (which it can be at very high levels) and ignores that the level at which water has fluoride in is well well below these levels.

But National Party health spokesman Jonathan Coleman has said the information being peddled by the group and Connett is “junk science” and dangerous. 

He questioned why those views would be treated as expert opinion in a briefing to MPs. 

That is the issue. The two Government MPs have described Connett as an expert which is an implicit endorsement.

“I’m very disappointed to see that that’s happening, and the question to the Labour Party has to be do they support fluoridation or not?

“At the time the Labour Party broadly said they supported that. Now you’ve got two Government MPs hosting anti-fluoride campaigners in Parliament… and the fact that we’ve got two Government MPs hosting that meeting would seem to indicate they don’t any more,” he said.

Fluoridation has been labelled one of the greatest health advances of the 20th century by the World Health Organisation. Coleman said the issue was “clear cut”. 

Labour says the science is settled on climate change, but at least one Labour MP seems to think it isn’t on fluoridation!