Charlatan "girl against flouride" finally exposed

Dravokivich

Duggy747 wrote: »

Just because someone takes a public stand doesn't mean they should be given special treatments or be free from criticism. You bring something to the public then expect to be scrutinised.........especially when it comes to public health.

There's plenty of people who believe in something strongly enough to take a public stand against gay marriage / adoption / rights, against immigrants / general racism, etc.

Just because they speak publicly or believe in something strongly enough doesn't mean they can be immune from criticism.

It's not criticism that MelissaK is speaking out against here, it's jeering. There's a difference between explaining why someone is wrong and calling them an idiot.

melissak

This is true but why not just dispute facts, I believe that if you want to personally insult someone you should at least sign your name to it. Otherwise people will be discouraged from voicing their beliefs because trolls have to much time on their hands. That's just me. It is too easy to be nasty from behind a computer. If you have something negative to contribute to someone say it to their face or at least take personal ownership of your comments... This is merely directed at people who are not offering facts but mean spirited comments disparaging other peoples character. There is nothing good to be gained from this it is beneath you all to stoop to this.....

melissak

Ray Palmer wrote: »

What is an open mind worth if anybody can make a claim and you believe it. A non scientific theory isn't really a theory at all. It requires evidence and scientific method to make it a theory. Evidence of out come and then using this evidence you come up with a theory.

Claiming magical properties that are improvable isn't a theory but hokum. You don't have an open mind to believe this you have a vacant one.

What does theory mean? As far as I understand it is not the same as fact....Many scientific theories are believed for a while and then thrown out when a more accurate theory comes along. Otherwise there would be no need for scientists at all, we would just say "that's it now, we know everything that there is to know we can stop questioning anything". That has been a dangerous position to take historically.
Anyway in my opinion a closed mind is more dangerous than a vacant one, if that is what you are suggesting that I have..

Ray Palmer

melissak wrote: »

What does theory mean? As far as I understand it is not the same as fact....Many scientific theories are believed for a while and then thrown out when a more accurate theory comes along. Otherwise there would be no need for scientists at all, we would just say "that's it now, we know everything that there is to know we can stop questioning anything". That has been a dangerous position to take historically.
Anyway in my opinion a closed mind is more dangerous than a vacant one, if that is what you are suggesting that I have..

Go look up theory if you don't know. Given what you just posted you don't know what it means.

Theory as used in the day to day conversation is a incorrect use as is probability and chance.

A theory is an explanation derived from evidence. Theories can be proven incorrect when more evidence appears but that is changing the information to derive a theory. Just saying a theory without any scientific evidence is not theory but a story.

weisses

Akrasia wrote: »

If in any debate, on one side you have pretty much the entire scientific community, and the other side you have conspiracy theorists and quacks, why would any right thinking person take the side of the quacks?

since when do you have the authority to call Doctors, professors and even Nobel prize winners who oppose Fluoridation quacks ?

melissak

Ray Palmer wrote: »

Go look up theory if you don't know. Given what you just posted you don't know what it means.

Theory as used in the day to day conversation is a incorrect use as is probability and chance.

A theory is an explanation derived from evidence. Theories can be proven incorrect when more evidence appears but that is changing the information to derive a theory. Just saying a theory without any scientific evidence is not theory but a story.

Thank you for your information. Very helpful. Maybe I have been using the word incorrectly, this is why I asked the question. I did look it up but it seemed to have a number of different meanings.....

robindch

weisses wrote: »

since when do you have the authority to call Doctors, professors and even Nobel prize winners who oppose Fluoridation quacks ?

Because they ignore the scientific consensus.

People who oppose fluoridation on scientific grounds are about as stupid as historians who deny the holocaust on historical grounds.

Muise...

melissak wrote: »

This is true but why not just dispute facts

We try, but last night you were disputing what a fact is. I think you confused it with opinion and belief while you were shifting the goalposts all over the pitch.

I Heart Internet

I don't buy the anti-fluoridation arguments, but that's beside my main point -

I'm suspicious of any campaign where someone makes themselves the focus of said campaign. OK, it could have happened by accident, she started a blog and it stuck, but it seems to be a vehicle for getting her face in the papers.

melissak

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Here's a bit of something like peer review: http://www.fluoridesandhealth.ie/download/documents/Appraisal_of_Waugh_report_May_2012.pdf

To be fair p. Breathnach I read this peer review. Am I mistaken or is it written by Dr SEAMUS O’HICKEY, (Chairman, Irish Expert Body on Fluorides and Health) who's organisation has a budget of €400,000 monitoring Fluorides on behalf of the Irish government. I am not saying that he is wrong mind only that he wouldn't, to my mind count as an IMPARTIAL peer reviewer.

melissak

I Heart Internet wrote: »

I don't buy the anti-fluoridation arguments, but that's beside my main point -

I'm suspicious of any campaign where someone makes themselves the focus of said campaign. OK, it could have happened by accident, she started a blog and it stuck, but it seems to be a vehicle for getting her face in the papers.

This is a fair point..... Also it personilises what might otherwise be a debate based on informed opinion rather than faces..

melissak

Muise... wrote: »

We try, but last night you were disputing what a fact is. I think you confused it with opinion and belief while you were shifting the goalposts all over the pitch.

Sorry. This is a fair argument. I am not trying to be pedantic regarding what a fact is, merely responding to what I felt was an attack on my intelligence by you by pointing out that you do not have a monopoly on truth. My point was and remains that people should refrain from personally attacking other people on this forum and then maybe we could have a BALANCED debate on a subject that is important rather than descending into pointless jeering. You don't prove a point by bullying others until they agree with you. You prove a point by respectfully debating.

melissak

Instead of fact I should have said informed opinions or evidence. My mistake, sorry for confusing the issue.

Jester252

melissak wrote: »

To be fair p. Breathnach I read this peer review. Am I mistaken or is it written by Dr SEAMUS O’HICKEY, (Chairman, Irish Expert Body on Fluorides and Health) who's organisation has a budget of €400,000 monitoring Fluorides on behalf of the Irish government. I am not saying that he is wrong mind only that he wouldn't, to my mind count as an IMPARTIAL peer reviewer.

I don't think you understand what peer review is.

Also the whole thing just gives me another reason to despise Ming

robindch

I Heart Internet wrote: »

[...] seems to be a vehicle for getting her face in the papers.

Still they help sales of her moronic naked calendars.

robindch

melissak wrote: »

[...] to my mind count as an IMPARTIAL peer reviewer.

Why? Because he's spent most of his adult life working in the area and knows a lot about it?

Or is an untrained blonde women who's willing to take off all her clothes and be photographed more reliable?

cletus van damme

Jester252 wrote: »

I don't think you understand what peer review is.

Also the whole thing just gives me another reason to despise Ming

how dare you despise ming

melissak

Jester252 wrote: »

I don't think you understand what peer review is.

Also the whole thing just gives me another reason to despise Ming

I don't actually, could you clarify it for me. I mean that it is not likely to be an impartial review by his peers in the scientific community. Excuse my lack of knowledge.

Jester252

melissak wrote: »

I don't actually, could you clarify it for me. I mean that it is not likely to be an impartial review by his peers in the scientific community. Excuse my lack of knowledge.

Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people of similar competence to the producers of the work. Why do you think it is not a impartial review. Why would someone risk their credibility on a paper that gives them nothing?

weisses

robindch wrote: »

Because they ignore the scientific consensus.

People who oppose fluoridation on scientific grounds are about as stupid as historians who deny the holocaust on historical grounds.

And how do you know the people i mentioned are "stupid" when you don't know the reason for their objection ?

There is also a religious consensus in Ireland .. You could call people who oppose the religious consensus "stupid" but i think that wouldn't go down very wel

weisses

Muise... wrote: »

We try, but last night you were disputing what a fact is. I think you confused it with opinion and belief while you were shifting the goalposts all over the pitch.

I provided you with some facts earlier in this thread care to elaborate on them ... or are you just here for cheap point scoring ?

renegademaster

how is she a charlatan exactly??

weisses

Jester252 wrote: »

Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people of similar competence to the producers of the work. Why do you think it is not a impartial review. Why would someone risk their credibility on a paper that gives them nothing?

Just Google Gilles-Éric Séralini

Jonny7

renegademaster wrote: »

how is she a charlatan exactly??

She peddles more woo and nonsense than a Victorian chemist?

Muise...

weisses wrote: »

I provided you with some facts earlier in this thread care to elaborate on them ... or are you just here for cheap point scoring ?

Go on so, remind me. Unless your facts are in a Hot Press article.

I Heart Internet

robindch wrote: »

Still they help sales of her moronic naked calendars.

Well I won't have a word said against the naked calendars. Nobody heard me mention the naked calendars! Leave the naked calendars out of this!! Let's just have the naked calendars and not the anti-flurodation nonsense.

goat2

mango salsa wrote: »

I really have despaired at Irish people over the last year or two who were taken by this clueless conspiracy theorist and am delighted that she is being finally exposed. I am delighted her previous supporters are now starting to withdraw their support. Luke Ming Flanagan announced the other day he no longer supports her.

The thing that I found really really hilarious and worrying at the same time is that some of her campaign team believe the pill and plastics cause homosexuality and castor oil cures cancer.

www.geoffsshorts.blogspot.ie/2013/11/girl-against-fluoride-f-minus-for-effort.html?m=1

www.geoffsshorts.blogspot.ie/2013/11/girl-against-fluoride-vaccine.html?m=1

www.geoffsshorts.blogspot.ie/2013/12/fluoride-girls-creative-director-links.html?m=1


www.corkskeptics.org/2013/12/18/water-fluoridation-and-leukaemia-the-missing-connection/


https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7IibyOvUf1Fc0VuSmYyQTJFNTg/preview

quote from third link above
Aisling FitzGibbon, better known as the bikini clad Girl Against Fluoride, has been asked by a UK nutritionist bring legal challenge against the Irish state for fluoridating water. She's paid hundreds of Euro to receive a printed certificate that enables her to communicate with angels and redirect their rays into people and their pets. A further investment is moving her towards another printed certificate, this time in the unregulated and dubious field of nutrition. The course is ultimately run by Barbara Wren, a woman caught on camera by the BBC claiming to have cured cancer using urine and castor oil. If time allows, do give it a read. If not fret not - there's more than enough preposterous nonsense about the campaign for this post to stand on its own.


i guess it is all in the name of money for nothing, she has earned from this nonsense

robindch

weisses wrote: »

And how do you know the people i mentioned are "stupid" when you don't know the reason for their objection?

Everything I've read from the anti-fluoride lobby has been desperately stupid. I wish there were a better word for it, but there isn't, though there are a lot of words which describe them better.

They wilfully misrepresent data. They tell lies. They tell half the story and pretend it's the whole. They ignore vast amounts of research. And they cherry-pick tiny bits of data which they blow out of all proportion to suit their own agenda. There is virtually nothing in their glossy, expensive presentations which is either reliable or honest.

A vigorous public debate is important. And it's great that there is one. But it's appalling that one side has no problem in trotting out lie, after lie, after lie. All of which can be trivially debunked.

weisses

melissak wrote: »

To be fair p. Breathnach I read this peer review. Am I mistaken or is it written by Dr SEAMUS O’HICKEY, (Chairman, Irish Expert Body on Fluorides and Health) who's organisation has a budget of €400,000 monitoring Fluorides on behalf of the Irish government. I am not saying that he is wrong mind only that he wouldn't, to my mind count as an IMPARTIAL peer reviewer.

He is not Impartial

O'Mullane was prominent at the IADR conference in South Africa in 1997. This conference seemed to lay the groundwork for the fluoridation push in South Africa. In the same year, O'Mullane's long-time associate Dr Seamus O'Hickey (Trinity College Dublin and the Irish Dept of Health) spent time in South Africa doing fluoridation propaganda and preparing the report that persuaded the government to go for mandatory fluoridation.

Maybe he's looking after his quango

robindch

I Heart Internet wrote: »

Let's just have the naked calendars and not the anti-flurodation nonsense.

In the interests of balance, I'd like to offer my own svelte, sophisticated male body.

Have speedos, can travel.

weisses

robindch wrote: »

Everything I've read from the anti-fluoride lobby has been desperately stupid. I wish there were a better word for it, but there isn't, though there are a lot of words which describe them better.

They wilfully misrepresent data. They tell lies. They tell half the story and pretend it's the whole. They ignore vast amounts of research. And they cherry-pick tiny bits of data which they blow out of all proportion to suit their own agenda. There is virtually nothing in their glossy, expensive presentations which is either reliable or honest.

A vigorous public debate is important. And it's great that there is one. But it's appalling that one side has no problem in trotting out lie, after lie, after lie. All of which can be trivially debunked.

What you need to do is to look not at the anti fluoride lobby but Google some professionals who are opposing mass fluoridation and their reasons for it ... If you then still think they are stupid you can at least quote from them directly and defend your own argument as to why they are stupid.

Claims that fit ones agenda are made from every side of the debate

I Heart Internet

robindch wrote: »

In the interests of balance, I'd like to offer my own svelte, sophisticated male body.

Have speedos, can travel.

Eeeehhhh....maybe they could squeeze you into to the background of a group shot for December...maybe. "Room for a little one."

weisses

robindch wrote: »

In the interests of balance, I'd like to offer my own svelte, sophisticated male body.

Have speedos, can travel.

No thanks i stick with the Goodyear calender ... No offense

robindch

weisses wrote: »

What you need to do is to look not at the anti fluoride lobby but Google some professionals who are opposing mass fluoridation and their reasons for it

I have read them and I've assessed their reasons as stupid, where their reasons are not openly dishonest. For the reasons I've said in the previous post. There's only so much crap one can read before one gives up - holocaust denial, flat earthers, creationists, moon-hoaxers, homeopaths, fluoride-fanatics and the rest.

I would quote here if I thought you were honestly interested in learning what the scientific side of this debate is, rather than the rabble-rousing side of this debate who are more interested in pictures of young, semi-naked or fully naked blonde women.

melissak

Jester252 wrote: »

Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people of similar competence to the producers of the work. Why do you think it is not a impartial review. Why would someone risk their credibility on a paper that gives them nothing?

Because he is paid by the government to investigate flouride. Maybe I have become cynical of government of late. Again not disputing anythin but impartiality. Maybe he is right...

Jester252

melissak wrote: »

Because he is paid by the government to investigate flouride. Maybe I have become cynical of government of late. Again not disputing anythin but impartiality. Maybe he is right...

but the people who reviewed the paper are not paid by the government. Also if there where any major issues with the paper it would have been blacked marked by the scientific community

Jester252

weisses wrote: »

Just Google Gilles-Éric Séralini

Thanks for proving my point

Godge

melissak wrote: »

To be honest I have my doubts, I have read a lot of info from both sides and I just don't know for certain to tell any of you that ye are wrong in what you obviously feel strongly about. I don't drink tap water and I object to fluoride being in the water supply, as I feel that people have the right to take it or not as it as they see fit. My reason for getting involved in this debate is that I believe that we have the right to make our own decisions on it.

SamAK wrote: »

AARRGH I JUST WANT WATER IN MY WATER

Pure water i.e. H2O and nothing else, won't give you the trace minerals you need. Will you be taking them as supplements?

I Heart Internet

robindch wrote: »

I would quote here if I thought you were honestly interested in learning what the scientific side of this debate is, rather than the rabble-rousing side of this debate who are more interested in pictures of young, semi-naked or fully naked blonde women.

Woah, woah, woah. Back up the truck there!

We were promised a "naked calander"

robindch

I Heart Internet wrote: »

We were promised a "naked calander"

As with everything from the anti-fluoride lobby, that turns out to have been a half-truth.

When will their supporters learn :rolleyes:

Muise...

I Heart Internet wrote: »

Woah, woah, woah. Back up the truck there!

We were promised a "naked calander"

she's a nudity fraud too! :pac:

melissak

Jester252 wrote: »

but the people who reviewed the paper are not paid by the government. Also if there where any major issues with the paper it would have been blacked marked by the scientific community

Fair enough . Thanks for the clarification. I misunderstood.

melissak

Godge wrote: »

Pure water i.e. H2O and nothing else, won't give you the trace minerals you need. Will you be taking them as supplements?

Spring water has trace minerals. No??

melissak

weisses wrote: »

He is not Impartial



Maybe he's looking after his quango

And perhaps his generous pay packet. That would be a reason why he would put his credibility on the line, since I was asked that question. However I don't know enough about him to say one way or another

melissak

robindch wrote: »

Why? Because he's spent most of his adult life working in the area and knows a lot about it?

Or is an untrained blonde women who's willing to take off all her clothes and be photographed more reliable?

No because he is very well paid by the government, who have been flouridating the water supply for years and would be seriously compromised if it turned out to be wrong. I didn't say that she was more or less reliable, merely that I would have to query the impartiality of someone paid by the government.

robindch

melissak wrote: »

I didn't say that she was more or less reliable [...]

So you don't care whether she's reliable or not?

Huh?

jh79

melissak wrote: »

Spring water has trace minerals. No??

Yes and more than likely fluoride too.

melissak

robindch wrote: »

So you don't care whether she's reliable or not?

Huh?

It's not that I don't care, I just don't know enough to try to convince people who feel strongly about it. My point was and is that people have every right to protest something they feel strongly without other people insulting them and ramming their opinions down their throat. This is not debate, this is trying to bully people into submission and is a tactic used by weak people trying to make themselves feel strong. This is not particularly directed at you. I'm just clarifying what brought me here.

Guy:Incognito

weisses wrote: »

He is not Impartial



Maybe he's looking after his quango

Presumably the description that he was in South Africa doing fluoride propaganda means that like is from an anti fluoride site?

The language certainly doesn't sound impartial.

Guy:Incognito

melissak wrote: »

Because he is paid by the government to investigate flouride. Maybe I have become cynical of government of late. Again not disputing anythin but impartiality. Maybe he is right...

So the government shouldn't make checks on anything they do? Just assume it's all going swimmingly? Or maybe just advertise for impartial souls willing to work for free?