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In testimony before the Congressional Committee on Appropriations this week, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F Kennedy, Jr. wrangled with Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Id) over whether governments should be adding fluoride to drinking water. Simpson questioned whether Kennedy's opposition to fluoridating was wise, saying "as a dentist I am acutely aware of statistics showing that where water is fluoridated cavities are rarer. I fear that removing it will lead to an epidemic of rotting teeth among our population. Are you indifferent to this risk?" Kennedy responded saying "the National Toxicity Program issued a report in August 2024, a...

Here's what you need to know about this hot button topic.Key Points: -Political controversy has stoked new conversations around the fluoridation of water and whether the mineral is safe to consume. -Water fluoridation, or the practice of adding fluoride to sources of drinking water, has been credited as one of the greatest public health innovations of the 20th century and helps protect tooth enamel and prevent cavities. -Dental experts and research say that water fluoridation provides vital dental support for communities, is proven to reduce rates of tooth decay, and is safe when kept at recommended concentrations. Although the addition...

Few EU countries still fluoridate their water supplies, but there's no evidence that countries in Europe stopped because of health harms. As US President-elect Donald Trump charts his second term in the White House, an unusual suspect is at the top of the health policy to-do list: removing fluoride, a naturally occurring mineral that helps prevent tooth decay, from the water supply. Robert F. Kennedy Jr – an environmental lawyer, anti-vaccine activist, and Trump’s pick to lead the US health department – has called fluoride an "industrial waste" and said Trump will push to remove it on day one of...

He said that Kennedy was “going to work on health and women’s health,” and two sources close to the Trump campaign have told NBC News that he might play a prominent role in battling “chronic childhood disease.” On Friday, Kennedy tweeted that on its first day in office, a Trump administration would push to ban fluoride in water, claiming it is “industrial waste” that leads to problems like cancer and other diseases. “Well, I haven’t talked to him about it yet, but it sounds okay to me,” Trump said Sunday when asked about that plan. “You know, it’s possible.” Major...

The dental health benefits of adding fluoride to drinking water may be smaller now than before fluoride toothpaste was widely available, an updated Cochrane review has found. The team of researchers reviewed the evidence from 157 studies which compared communities that had fluoride added to their water supplies with communities that had no additional fluoride in their water. They found that the benefit of fluoridation has declined since the 1970s, when fluoride toothpaste became more widely available. "Most of the studies on water fluoridation are over 50 years old, before the availability of fluoride toothpaste. Contemporary studies give us a...

July 1, 2002The "Fuzzy Math" of Fluoride Promotion By Paul Connett, PhD (ggvideo@northnet.org) Many of you may have probably heard the term "fuzzy math" before. It is a term used to describe a somewhat controversial method of teaching math where the answers do not have to be EXACTLY right. But at the very least, they are supposed to be close. Unfortunately, many of those promoting the practice of water fluoridation would fail to meet even these basic "fuzzy math" guidelines, with methods better described as "hairy" than "fuzzy". And "fuzzy math" is supposed to be a temporary teaching tool...

Water fluoridation has been hailed by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as one of the top great public health achievements of the 20th century, but a new study raises questions about its role as a potential neurotoxin in utero. The study, published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics on Monday, found that increased levels of fluoride exposure during pregnancy were associated with declines in IQ in children. Previous research has made similar findings, but this is the first such study to evaluate the effect of fluoride on populations receiving what the US Public Health Service considers optimal levels...

Israel Bans Water Fluoridation The New American 26 August 2014 Israeli authorities last week unveiled a nationwide ban on the controversial practice of adding the chemical fluoride, labeled a “neurotoxin” by a top medical journal this year, to public water supplies as a medical treatment. The decision by the Health Ministry to ban what critics call a dangerous, involuntary mass-medication scheme drew applause from many medical and some dental experts around the world. However, it also prompted outrage and vicious attacks by proponents of fluoridation, who say the chemical can provide benefits to children’s teeth. The ban is a...

An angry reader — one of many — is impatiently waiting for me to explain myself after an earlier column in which I characterized anti-fluoride activists as delusional cranks. “You are promoting the mass medication of your community,” she wrote. “It makes absolutely no sense to put this hazardous waste into our drinking water. Why are you pushing for this insane practice? I look forward to your response.” I have a response, but she won’t like it: I am at an honest loss as to how to respond to crazy talk. If someone wants to believe flying saucers are beaming...

Early returns showed Portland residents voting to keep their city the largest in the U.S. without fluoride in the water. With more than half the expected ballots counted Tuesday night, the Multnomah County election website showed the fluoride proposal failing, 60 percent to 40 percent. Voters in Portland twice rejected fluoridation before approving it in 1978. That plan was overturned two years later, before any fluoride was ever added to the water. The City Council voted last year to add fluoride to the water supply that serves about 900,000 people. But opponents quickly gathered enough signatures to force a vote...

The co-author of a book on partisan science recently examined by Pacific Standard argues that our reviewer was a little too partisan himself. Any book that touches upon politics almost automatically angers half of the American public, regardless of what is written inside of it. It takes a special person—an objective, open-minded and self-critical one—to read and learn from a science book that criticizes people with whom the reader likes and agrees with politically.Recently, Pacific Standard published a review (“Red Science, Blue Science,” January/February 2013) by Wray Herbert, a pop psychology writer,of political writer Chris Mooney’s book The Republican Brain...

New York -- May 2, 2010 -- Sixty-five years ago today, officials added fluoride chemicals into Newburgh, NY's public water supply making residents guinea pigs in a failed experiment to discover whether fluoride could safely reduce tooth decay. It didn't. But political pressure declared it a success. Any high school biology student can find the flaws in this "study." Fluoride researchers are still using our bodies and tax dollars for their own benefit. Ten years later, 1955, researchers reported that newly fluoridated Newburgh children had more bone defects, anemia and earlier female menstruation than never-fluoridated Kingston children, according to the...

At the recent CPAC conference, Birch Society President John McManus and the Senior Editor of the Birch Society magazine, The New American, spoke with Rachel Maddow of MSNBC when she dropped by their CPAC booth. Video of Maddow at JBS-CPAC booth: http://www.libertynewsnetwork.tv/?p=101 Since December 2009, Rachel has devoted three segments of her TV program to the Birch Society. During two of those segments, Rachel discussed the Birch Society position on the fluoridation of water supplies. The Birch Society subsequently dismissed her comments as a typical "left-wing smear" of the JBS. It is totally understandable that JBS President John McManus now...

 TRENTON, NJ — The New Jersey Senate’s health committee on December 7 passed a bill that would require fluoride to be added to public water supplies throughout the state, The Star-Ledger reported December 8. Environmental advocates, utility companies and some parents object to the bill (A3709/S2856), which would require public and private water utilities to start adding fluoride within a year of the law’s enactment. Some lawmakers say the bill would be too costly to the consumer, yet the Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee voted 6-0 with three abstentions to approve the bill. There are more than...

Push to fluoridate water in San Jose So far, tooth fairies have had it great in San Jose: The city is the largest in the country that doesn't fluoridate its water. But now a major effort is under way to shed that title. In a push toward better dental health in the valley, advocates have launched a campaign to raise the millions needed to upgrade the city's water infrastructure. Given the controversy that typically surrounds fluoridation efforts, they expect progress to be slow. So on Wednesday backers of the effort brought a top engineer from the Centers for Disease Control...

New York -- Blood fluoride levels were significantly higher in patients with osteosarcoma than in control groups, according to research published in Biological Trace Element Research (April 2009). Osteosarcoma, a rare bone cancer, occurs mostly in children and young adults Sandhu and colleagues measured serum fluoride levels in three equal groups of age-matched and sex-matched patients. Group one had osteosarcoma; group two had non-osteosarcoma bone tumors; and group three had musculo-skeletal pain. (1) “Mean serum fluoride concentration was found to be significantly higher in patients with osteosarcoma as compared to the other two groups,” write Randhu’s team. “(T)his report proves...

New York State's Governor Patterson is proposing extensive tax increases to offset revenue shortfalls. But I have a better idea. Stop fluoridation. This win-win decision for all states would save multi-millions of dollars and benefit every American – except maybe legislators beholden to special interest groups. Science shows ending fluoridation saves teeth, money, preserves health and will reduce the carbon footprint, to boot, but it would irk organized dentistry. That’s the rub. After 60 years of water fluoridation and over 50 years of fluoridated toothpaste, tooth decay is epidemic in the United States because 80% of dentists refuse to treat...

The Dark Side of Linus Pauling's Legacy Stephen Barrett, M.D. Linus Pauling, Ph.D. (1901-1994), was the only person ever to win two unshared Nobel prizes. He received these awards for chemistry in 1954 and for peace in 1962. He contributed greatly to the development of chemical theories. His impact on the health marketplace, however, was anything but laudable. Pauling is largely responsible for the widespread misbelief that high doses of vitamin C are effective against colds and other illnesses. In 1968, he postulated that people's needs for vitamins and other nutrients vary markedly and that to maintain good health, many...

New York – October 11 2007 - Researchers reporting in the Oct 6 British Medical Journal (BMJ) indicate that fluoridation, touted as a safe cavity preventive, never was proven safe or effective and may be unethical. (1) Cavity rates declined equally in fluoridated and non-fluoridated European countries over three decades. “This trend has occurred regardless of the concentration of fluoride in water or the use of fluoridated salt,” write Sir Iain Chalmers, editor of the James Lind Library, which was set up to help people understand the evidence base of medicine, KK Cheng, professor of epidemiology at Birmingham University, and...

ADA Distributing Misleading Information on Two Federal Fluoride Reports, Says Fluoride Action Network New York -- In a statement released August 9, 2007, over 600 dentists, physicians, scientists and environmentalists urge Congress to stop water fluoridation until Congressional hearings are conducted. They cite new scientific evidence that fluoridation, long promoted to fight tooth decay, is ineffective and has serious health risks. (http://www.fluorideaction.org/statement.august.2007.html) Signers include a Nobel Prize winner, three members of the prestigious 2006 National Research Council (NRC) panel that reported on fluoride’s toxicology, two officers in the Union representing professionals at EPA headquarters, the President of the International Society...