The BFD | What You Don’t Know About Fluoride

New Zealand Doctors Speaking Out with Science

Episode 340 of The Highwire on 6 October 2023, The Fluoride Scandal included an interview with Michael Connett, Esq. A lawyer for Fluoride Action Network, Connett is Lead Attorney in a US lawsuit being brought against the Environmental Protection Agency, by a consortium of environmental health groups and individual mothers of children suffering from the impact of fluoride toxicity.

Connett outlines the history of water fluoridation in the USA, which began in Grand Rapids in Michigan, in 1945. Read a detailed timeline of the history of water fluoridation here.

The main take-home point from Connett is that early research promoting water fluoridation was led by an entangled web of interest groups. The aluminium, steel and nuclear industries all faced legal liability due to their release of fluoride by-product into air and water which was causing population health issues in communities downstream and downwind of their manufacturing facilities. The sugar industry needed insurance against their role in the high rates of dental decay in populations at the time.

The dental trade associations, concerned about government interference due to a shortage of dental health professionals, needed to keep their monopoly on dental care provision. Even individual dentists tended to look upon the issue with optimism as it seemed a hopeful solution to the problem of tooth decay.

Fluoride was the “industrial pixie dust” that they all needed. Scientists from the US Bomb Program, the Manhattan Project, who produced enormous amounts of fluoride byproduct, oversaw the early water fluoridation experiments. It seems inevitable that fluoride research outcomes would be influenced by industrial bias.

This is a crucial aspect to scientific research, as has been seen throughout the past four years with conflicted experts representing corporate interests being employed by governments. For example, the UK Covid-19 Inquiry recently heard testimony from Professor John Edmunds, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and mathematical modeler for the UK Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies (SAGE). His models were consistently alarmist and incorrect, but he continues to claim that if the UK had locked down “earlier and harder”, many lives could have been saved.

This goes against all pre-2020 pandemic plan evidence and recommendations and has no credible scientific basis. Professor Edmunds’ conflicts of interest include associations with the pharmaceutical industry, vaccination industry, CEPI, GAVI and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This business model of public-private partnerships between governments receiving advice on policy from scientists directly connected to industry sabotages the credibility of authentic science and must always be examined when considering ‘evidence’.

In the early days of fluoride promotion as a public health good, independent scientists dissented from the industrial interest groups’ conclusions. As has occurred in extraordinary proportion since 2020, these scientists were stigmatised, marginalised and ridiculed despite having credible evidence to suggest that adding fluoride to water was an extremely reckless intervention which removed the right to informed consent and the right to decline medical treatment.

Despite today’s science on fluoride being much more mature and developed, as can be seen at the Fluoride Action Network‘s repository of scientific literature, and that of their partner, Fluoride Free NZ, US safety standards (and across the globe including New Zealand) are based on early and very crude, outdated science. Connett discusses some of the updated literature which invalidates the earlier science still underlying policy.

Central to the lawsuit is the 2006 National Research Council (NRC) report, Fluoride in Drinking Water: A Scientific Review of EPA’s Standards, which provides evidence of declining IQ scores in child populations with increasing fluoride exposure. Since then further studies have been conducted which confirm these findings. The risk of neurotoxic effects of chemicals including fluoride are at their zenith in the earliest stages of life: in utero and early childhood. The blood-brain barrier is still developing at this time, and ingested chemicals can easily cross into the developing brain.

The lawsuit began with a petition filed to the EPA in 2016 under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), requesting a ban on water fluoridation due to it presenting unreasonable risks to the brain, even at low levels. The EPA denied the petition, and so for the first time in US history, a citizens group filed their petition under TSCA in a federal court. This clearly appeals to Del Bigtree, whose own Informed Consent Action Network has conducted groundbreaking legal work in relation to pharmaceutical product harms.

During the interview with Del Bigtree, footage is shown of Connett cross-examining high level scientists from the CDC Division of Oral Health, the EPA Water Office, and a private and globalised certification body called the NSF (National Sanitation Foundation). All admitted under oath that independent risk assessments of fluoridation chemicals have not been performed. Despite scientists at both the NRC and EPA agreeing that fluoride is unsafe, the agencies have not acted, which appears to be due to political pressure, including from the dental industry.

The NSF are of particular interest as they have a presence in New Zealand and many other nations. Despite being held up as a certifying body, they have no position on whether fluoridation causes neurotoxic effects, have taken no steps to determine the upper tolerable daily dose of fluoride that will not cause neurotoxic effects in humans, and have no position on what the upper tolerable level of daily fluoride should be, so as to protect against neurotoxic effects. Nevertheless, their own Fact Sheet on Fluoridation Products and Fluoride states that they certify fluoride products. Is this an independent regulatory body or an industry agent dealing in public-private partnerships?

Connett concludes that these agencies consider that their role is to promote fluoride, with a strong and aggressive posture making it difficult for them to change course despite the massive body of evidence against fluoride having any public health benefit. All efforts appear to focus on protecting policy rather than protecting public health.

The lawsuit trial began in June 2020 and a judge spent seven days hearing evidence from prominent experts in the field of toxicology and epidemiology with specific specialisations in fluoride. The judge concluded that evidence presented had raised serious concerns about water fluoridation. He determined to place his judgement on hold until the National Toxicology Program report was published.

This report remains unpublished, with questions as to whether a final publication will ever be released, due to what appears via FOIA requests to be political lobbying from industrial interests. As such, Connett approached the court and requested a judgement, which was agreed to. The hearing will be held in January 2024, with a judgement expected on whether fluoridation chemicals added to drinking water pose an unreasonable risk to human health. If the judgement rules that there is a risk, then the EPA will be required to take steps to eliminate the risk.

Call to Action

Those who wish to contribute to the trial costs can do so via Moms Against Fluoridation. If you are interested in learning more about fluoridation, Connett describes this trial as an ideal educational opportunity for people to hear what the scientists at this highest level are saying about the issue of fluoride and the brain. The best experts and independent scientists raising concerns about fluoride will present their case, as will the best experts representing the US government. Tune in on 24 January 2024.