Fluoridation – A Tale of Caution
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- Published: Friday, 09 May 2025 10:45
- Written by Peter Ingle
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When professional leaders and politicians discuss solutions to the UK dental access crisis, prevention is a key feature of their recovery plans. Increasing political polarisation may hinder one of the main planks in this strategy.
Water fluoridation remains a widely supported measure, at least by health experts. Despite this, it is still only reaching about 10% of the UK population. A look across to the USA may show why, despite the good intentions, that percentage may not be about to increase.
Currently in the USA more than 70% of those on public supply systems get fluoridated tap water. In a country of such entrenched differences it was always inevitable that there would be those fiercely opposed to fluoridation. Once a fringe group, they are now gaining ground, and those wanting to see more fluoridation in the UK may need to prepare for a similar struggle.
GDPUK recently reported on the shortage of dentists in rural US communities such as those in Arkansas. Here, the Ozark Mountain Regional Public Water Authority has received hundreds of state fines amounting to about $130,000, for failing to fluoridate. They are simply stuffed in a cardboard box and left unpaid, according to Andy Anderson, who has led the water system for nearly 20 years, and is opposed to fluoridation.
With Robert F. Kennedy Jr. the US Health and Human Services Secretary, Mr Anderson may now have support at the top of the administration.
Anderson, who has been chair of the water system board since 2007, now wants to challenge the fluoride mandate in court again. In one interview, Anderson said he believes that fluoride can hamper the brain and body to the point of making people "get fat and lazy."
"So if you go out in the streets these days, walk down the streets, you’ll see lots of fat people wearing their pyjamas out in public," he said.
More recently, the anti-fluoride movement has seized on research suggesting high levels of fluoride can hinder children’s brain development. In the USA it has been boosted by high-profile legal and political victories.
In August 2024 a contested report from the National Institutes of Health’s National Toxicology Programme found "with moderate confidence" that exposure to levels of fluoride that are higher than those present in American drinking water was associated with lower IQ in children. It was based on an analysis of 74 studies carried out in other countries, most of which were considered "low quality" and involved exposure of at least 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per litre of water which is more than twice the U.S. recommendation.
The following month, in a long-simmering lawsuit filed by fluoride opponents, a California judge said that the possible link between fluoride and lowered IQ was too risky to ignore. He ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to take unspecified steps to lower that risk. The EPA started to appeal this ruling in the final days of the Biden administration, but the Trump administration may reverse course.
Bruce Lanphear, a children’s health researcher at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, wrote in January that the findings should prompt health organizations "to reassess the risks and benefits of fluoride, particularly for pregnant women and infants.” He claimed that the study had shifted the burden of proof.
In April 2025 the American Dental Association (ADA) released a statement strongly opposing the “dangerously irresponsible comments made by Louisiana Surgeon General Dr. Ralph Abraham about community water fluoridation.” This followed the announcement that the Surgeon General would be backing a bill to ban the public water fluoridation in Louisiana.
And both Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo and Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller have called for their respective states to end fluoridation.
“I don’t want Big Brother telling me what to do,” Miller said in February. “Government has forced this on us for too long.”
According to anti-fluoride group, the Fluoride Action Network, since late 2024 dozens of cities and counties have decided to stop fluoridation. This includes at least 16 communities in Florida with a combined population of more than 1.6 million.
Stuart Cooper, executive director of the group, said the movement’s unprecedented momentum would be further supercharged if the Kennedy and the Trump administration follow through on a recommendation against fluoride. He has predicted that most U.S. communities will have stopped fluoridating within years.
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