The Fluoride Question | Unfilter 9

The Fluoride Question | Unfilter 9

Some call it one of the most significant public health advances in history, others call it a dangerous toxic substance. In this episode we look at the Fluoride debate.

And a new generation of technology is empowering our cars, but what is being done to safeguard your privacy?

Plus: Your feedback, and our follow up.

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Show Notes:

ACT ONE:

ACT TWO:

ACT THREE: Feedback

  • Rutger Writes…
  • Archie wrote in to say he felt we were hard on farmers last episode.

Picks of the week:

Song pick of the week:
For You by Staind UK Link

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  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Eric-L-Beyer/1455921541 Eric L Beyer

    I haven’t had a chance to listen to the show yet, but have you guys taken a look at the American Dental Association’s web site on fluoride? It’s pretty thorough: http://www.ada.org/fluoride.aspx

  • gumb

    The link to the mobile video is broken.

  • Precious Bodily Fluids

    I must once again direct you to Quackwatch. I highly suggest you read it thoroughly because it talks about what you are becoming: http://www.quackwatch.com/03HealthPromotion/fluoride.html

    And why not head over to Wikipedia as well:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_controversy

    I can’t find this claim that fluoride accumulates in the pineal gland anywhere. It seems to all go back to a paper “published” by “Jennifer Luke”, a “philosophy student”, but it only seems to exist on conspiracy websites and alternative medicine websites (practically the same thing). I should be able to find this in a medical journal of some kind.

    The bottom line is that even after 60-70 years, even while there is ample evidence that fluoridated water provides health benefits even today, those who oppose it for health reasons have never been able to prove a single claim of properly fluoridated water’s harm. Evidence is required for these claims.

    All in all, I’d give this episode 2 out of 10 because the idiocy did make me chuckle a few times. I enjoy how you continually respond to complaints that you do not give balanced perspective by saying “YES WE DO, we just all happen to agree that fluoride is a communist plot”. Keep searching for the bottom, Chris.

  • ChrisLAS

    Fixed thanks!

  • ChrisLAS

    Take a deep breath, and email us in some links!

    We’ll be doing follow up next week. I’ve already published some of it on filterfree.me

  • nobody

    This Show is just a ridiculous conspiracy-circlerjerk. Get some expertise to the show or cancel it alltogether.

  • Precious Bodily Fluids

    Sure, Chris. I–along with every other person that prefers science-based medicine and fact-based journalism–would love to spend a few precious hours every Saturday debunking the steaming piles of unsubstantiated and irresponsible claims in Unfiltered, in hopes that you will spend a couple minutes talking about how you’re not actually biased in a future episode. This is a public health issue, Chris. What’s next, antivax?

    No, it’s more likely that people like me will stop watching and you’ll be left with people that lack critical thinking skills to fill your audience and give you more ideas for content. Because this is very, very alienating.

    I speak not as an individual, but as my demographic here: I implore you to shut this show down and scrub its existence from the site. I know that hurts to hear, and I know you won’t because I also know you’re proud of the show. I’ll say this, the production values are very good. But it really sucks to watch someone you respect do this, and every episode I watch or listen to makes me question whether I should unsubscribe from the Jupiter Broadcasting RSS feed and free up several hours of my time every week. I’ve watched your shows since before you had video and before Jupiter Broadcasting was a thing, but I also always hope those that broadcast antiscience shrivel up and die (your network, not you). You are making our planet worse with this shitty show. It is pollution.

  • ChrisLAS

    I’m kinda getting the sense that you really just want to be angry on the Internet… And I can’t do much to help that.

    Here’s the thing – If you really have watched me for as long as you claim to have, then you know I am not a nut job. And I’d hope you’d have picked up on some of my values, and approaches to sharing information.

    No single episode is the end of a topic, in fact its generally the start to gauge engagement.

    We’re not perfect, but we also don’t have some anti-science agenda, or the need to scare people into buying.

    The whole point of this show is to take a topic, and look at the angles that the mainstream media outlets never talk about, ask questions, and share what we find.

    Is that perfect? Nope, it’s the downside to some editor not sitting above us checking everything that goes out and telling us what we can, or can’t say.

    I think, but I am not sure, that a lot of your anger comes from us spreading some anti-science meme.

    But everyone watching has a brain of their own, listens to what we say, and makes their own critical judgment and decides to accept, or reject what was said in the show.

    For those that keep listening, they’ll benefit from future updates and additional info, for others, they loose out on hearing new sides of things they thought they knew the whole story on for years.

    If you can avoid rage quitting, I’d encourage you to tune in next week. We won’t be devoting the show to, but we’ll likely have an extended ACT 3 covering any of the good info we’ve gotten since the last episode.

    -Chris

  • http://twitter.com/MichaelVail Michael Vail

    I think if we care about providing information to prove a point or flesh out a subject people can do so without the anger or name calling. That is how you can tell if someone is being genuinely critical for the good of us all or just the usual stone thrower. Calling people names isn’t going to make others understand these important issues.

  • Precious Bodily Fluids

    Actually Chris, I’ve been watching the network long enough to know that you ARE just a little bit of a nut job. I’ve already heard you talk about the harm of vaccines in the context of your grandfather getting sick, although at the time it did sound like your grandfather may have had Guillain Barre syndrome. I’ve also heard you espouse the Alkaline Diet and you eat a Paleo Diet, both not exactly diets with a lot of evidentiary support for their health benefits. In the first episode of this Unfiltered, you talked about how marijuana cured a serious stomach problem of yours, which is … pretty improbable, although I do believe marijuana can make some stomach problems manageable and happen to advocate legalization. I hope you had let a doctor figure out what’s going on, by the way, instead of turning to immediately to marijuana. It is not a magic plant or a miracle cure. And now fluoride, basically the number one identifier of a hopelessly confused conspiracy nut. This is not an impressive track record.

    Your shows generally seem to work by getting an expert to talk about their field, and you, the layman, keeps the show accessible to non-experts (nearly everyone) by simply trying to participate in the conversation, and providing a dialog also tends to be a lot more interesting to listen to one person go on about something. This is a good formula. Either that, or the show is purely for fun, a la Faux Show and Jupiter@Nite, both of which were/are great shows.

    Unfiltered is the first time you’ve gone off the rails by talking about something serious AND not having a single person that ostensibly knows what the hell they’re talking about on board. I’m sorry, but if you’re doing polemics on an issue as old and settled as water fluoridation–a completely uncontroversial topic with the general public and even more uncontroversial by far among scientists–, your research process is fundamentally broken. Why should I trust you? How is this an improvement on the so-called mainstream media outlets? If I listen, you’re either wasting my time because I believe nothing you say anyway, or you’re just making more work for me by making me fact check everything.

    And for the love of the gods, don’t assume my criticism of your show means I’m just an angry person. I’m criticizing it because it is both awful and polarizing. Unfiltered is simply the worst show you’ve ever done, and this fluoride episode is the single worst piece of content you’ve ever made. The only reason I listened was because I assumed you were going to talk about how bizarre water fluoridation conspiracy theorists are. I don’t understand how you’re not embarrassed by this. You should really stop while you’re not that far behind and kill this colossal failure of a show.

  • Igor

    Unfortunately, I must agree with the previous comments… but I’ll keep watching Techsnap and LAS.

  • ChrisLAS

    Your post are way way to long for me to keep replying too.

    But my grandpa? What are you talking about man?