Counting the Wrong Things

As you know, I’ve been consistently critical of a dumb OA systematic review in JAMA Pediatrics which revived the fluoride-IQ conspiracy theory and led to the elimination of fluoridated drinking water in Utah and Florida. The EIC of JAMA Network admitted it was “not great science,” and it allowed RFK, Jr., to tell President Trump that when it comes to fluoride, “The more you get, the stupider you are.”

Now, JAMA Pediatrics has published its hagiographic annual review, complete with numbers like total submissions, acceptance rate, and so forth. Then it gets to the attention economy section, and that’s what we’re going to focus on:

The fluoride-IQ article had about 4x the normal maximum views for JAMA Pediatrics, going far beyond the community of pediatricians and pediatric health professionals because of what I assume is viral MAHA-itis (an inflamed MAHA). With an Altmetric score that isn’t similarly large, this suggests that Substacks and other non-traditional sources of inflammation and spread were involved. Then, it infiltrated citations.

But all of these numbers don’t matter as much as a few others the pediatricians involved might want to consider — you know, the consequences of publishing a paper “they knew . . . was flawed, and by its nature . . . based on a lot of studies with problems, and it was going to be high-profile”:

• Approximate number of children in Utah: 1,000,000
  • Estimated additional cavities (1.2% increase): 12,000
• Approximate number of children in Florida: 4,500,000
  • Estimated additional cavities (1.2% increase): 54,000

So, with an estimated 66,000 additional cavities thanks to this article being available to be weaponized to drive state fluoridation policy changes, that comes out to about four downloads per cavity, or about 1,375 cavities per citation.

Maybe instead of counting things like downloads and citations and Altmetric tokens, the editors of JAMA Pediatrics may want to count the cost of this paper.

Drill, baby, drill.