Water Keepers, Fluoridation and the Rule of Experts: Bioethical Implications of Disciplinary Science

In 2014 water-fluoridation was abolished in Israel; in 2016 the Ministry of Health attempted to reintroduce fluoridation. The Supreme Court of Justice delayed the decision until November 2018 on technical grounds, and refrained from discussing claims regarding violation of medical ethics and human rights. Before fluoridation was resumed, a new decentralized NGO, the Water Keepers of Israel, met with Ministry of Health officials and submitted a letter with 66 questions demanding explanation of the zigzag in Israel's health and environmental policy, exposing inadequate data and research in fluoridation "science", entangled with contradictions and conceptual confusions. The fact that a contradictory theory became public health policy, backed by the United States Centers of Disease Control, American Medical Association, and WHO, exposes the dangers of disciplinary science, in which "experts", prone to group-thinking, become practically immune to cross-disciplinary criticism. In disciplinary science, logical and empirical criteria are replaced by "consensus", created politically by professional organizations and regulatory agencies. Updated findings, submitted to MoH, contain refutation of the fluoridation theory and expose unethical conduct at the MoH, the "experts" and professional health organizations. Besides violations of medical ethics, the experts discredited criticism by portraying fluoridation-sceptics as misinformed, unscientific, irrational, emotional or hysteric; the experts employed Fake News tactics, regardless of existing or missing data; The same unethical treatment is given presently to vaccine-'hesitancy" by the MoH and WHO. Such aggressive unethical forms of dispute imperils communication, and discourages experts from other disciplines and non-academics from participating in scientific debates. The greatest failure is on the part of the Academia and Science community at large, who left "controversial" topics of public concern to sub-disciplinary "experts" who control semi-feudal branches of the Tree of Knowledge, incapable of crossdisciplinary communication and rational decisionmaking: a new Tower of Babylon. The "Babylonian" disciplinary science, as exemplified by fluoridation theory, is hopelessly subdivided, incapable of interdisciplinary communication or admitting errors, ecologically uninformed, politically and disciplinary biased, unethical and inherently conservative. The papers suggests "biohacking" as an open-source alternative, based on critical thinking, subjective selfexperimentation, embodiment, and objective scientific knowledge and know-how, to ensure democratic communication and public-participation in science, medicine and health.