Catherine Carstairs in The Guardian on the Fluoridation Debate

This week Dr. Catherine Carstairs is interviewed on the history and politics of water fluoridation:

... Even the history of water fluoridation is a toxic subject, as Catherine Carstairs, a professor at the University of Guelph in Ontario, recently discovered. Carstairs was taken aback by the “fierceness” of the responses to her paper in the American Journal of Public Health last year. It was attacked as “an attempt to reignite and legitimise the unsubstantiated claims of anti-fluoridationists”. The journal’s editor was forced to defend his decision to publish “an article that does not unconditionally support community water fluoridation or its glorious history”, as well as the journal’s right “to publish strong pieces of research even when they do not fit well with our preconceived ideas."

"You don’t usually get this kind of attention as an historian,” says Carstairs. “It was like, how dare you say anything against water fluoridation.”

Social media has inured us to the bloodsport of “calling out” or “shutting down” opponents whose views are unorthodox or contrarian. But the people calling out Carstairs and Peckham were university academics, not bedroom-residing teenagers.

Tooth decay is the most widespread chronic disease...

Read the rest of the story at The Guardian