Ok, there’s a group of people who are meeting. In secret and they have a plan to do something. I don’t know what. I don’t know when. But – if you doubt me = just look at the evidence. There is absolutely no evidence anywhere of what they’re planning. None! That’s how effective they’ve been at keeping their conspiracy secret!!

The beauty of my first paragraph is that while it could be ironic, it’s also perfectly true. And that’s the flaw with so many conspiracy theories. If the organisation or group is so all powerful, why are they so bad at covering their tracks?

There are usually two responses to this. One is that they’re so powerful that they don’t care; the other is that it’s only thanks to a few intrepid individuals that the truth is coming out.

I’m sure that there are actual conspiracies in the world. While Labor, I suspect, are plotting to take government as soon as possible, I’d hardly put this in the category of conspiracy, any more than the seemingly cosy relationship between Rupert Murdoch and the Liberal Party. It’s only a conspiracy when the stated agenda is radically different from the actual agenda. In the case of Rupert and Tony, it’s clear that Ruperts aim is to dominate the world, and Tony’s aim is to help him. These things are pretty much on public record. (Why has Rupert allowed “The Simpsons” to run? Simple – he doesn’t realise that Mr Burns is an unsympathetic character!)

Now, as to fluoride in our water supply. Yep, there could be a debate about some of the health effects and whether it’s the most effective way to help children develop healthy teeth, but I didn’t really believe as some Americans did in the sixties that it was the “commies” trying to put it into the water supply to poison us all and control our minds.

And so the Facebook meme linking it to Hitler and concentration camps caught my eye. Was it possible that it was true? That fluoride was part of the communist plot to make Americans compliant idiots who’d be easily influenced by propaganda?

Well, a lengthy internet search found no evidence that there was actually fluoride in the water at concentration camps. All of the evidence about this came from people arguing against putting fluoride in the water. You know, it was sort of: “And another reason not to put fluoride in the water is that Hitler did it to keep the Jews docile”. (I would have thought that the machine guns and the dogs would have kept it fairly unlikely that they’d attempt an uprising, but no matter.)

As for the effects of fluoride, well, I could find nothing about keeping people docile. There was a recent Harvard study that suggested it could be responsible for lowering IQ, but that was mainly about children, and it pointed out mixing it with infant formula have a much higher sose than mother’s milk. It wasn’t conclusive. And as the tobacco industry and the climate deniers will tell you, until it’s conclusive, you should do nothing. (Sorry, didn’t mean to link them there. I’ll get comments now from climate sceptics challenging me to prove that they ever worked for the tobacco industry even though it says so in the CV that they put online!) But nothing to suggest that that fluoride would lower the intelligence levels in older people.

Certainly, there was no study that suggested that the Arab Spring may have been a result of a lack of fluoride in the drinking water there. Perhaps, we could check to see if revolutions are more prevalent in countries that don’t have fluoride in their water. But then it could be because the countries who don’t have fluoride in their water – or, indeed, any drinking water – have more reasons to mount a revolt.

I’m sure that none of this has reassured any of the people who are convinced that climate change is part of a global conspiracy to establish Martian rule on earth and that fluoride is responsible for the election of the past ten Prime Ministers of Australia who are all members of the sacred order of Dan Brown’s Vitruvian Man, because, after all, we know that the records of what the Germans did has been completely eliminated from public view and it’s only a few truth-seeker who’ve been able to find documentation linking everything to the Allies real reasons for wanting to stop the Nazis.

No, it’s clear really. Both dentists and scientists wear white coats. They’re all part of the same community that likes spreading misinformation. And we know how easy it is to remove the truth from the internet, so the very fact that there’s no information on how fluoride makes you compliant just proves that the dentists have suppressed it. Yes, I’ve been thinking much more clearly since I gave up seeing my dentist and restricted my fluid intake to nothing but wine. Certainly after a bottle of water, I’m usually quite placid, but after a bottle of wine the effects of the fluoride have worn off and I’m ready to rage against the machine.

Just goes to prove that you shouldn’t let a lack of evidence spoil a good conspiracy theory!