Important Events

The below facts, findings and recent developement offer some of the latest scientific research on the dangers of fluoridation as well as the growing number of councils banning the practice.

2008

• PubMed (medical database) publishes article acknowledging link between fluoride exposure and lowered IQ

• US National Kidney Foundation threatened with legal action for failure to advise members of special risks they face from fluoride, withdraws its support for fluoridation

• Quebec ceases water fluoridation.
• The Hampshire County Council in the UK convenes a Review Panel to assess fluoridation as a result of the Strategic Health Authority proposing to fluoridate its water. The Panel rejects fluoridation. This was a particularly thorough review by a Council.

2007

• An international professionals' statement calling for an end to water fluoridation is initiated. It is signed by members of both York and and the NRC reviews, past Ministers of Health, and a range of leading professionals in international bodies.
• Hawaii passes a bylaw making fluoridation illegal.
• An article in The Lancet, the world's oldest and independent medical journal, describes fluoride as "an emerging neurotoxin". This should be read in conjunction with the Scientific Consensus Statement on Neurotoxicity.
• A US study shows that dentists have still not caught up with the change in position on the way fluoride works, published in 1999.
• The Collaborative on Health and the Environment’s Learning and Developmental Disabilities Initiative issues a Scientific Consensus Statement on Environmental Agents Associated with Neurodevelopmental Disorders identifying:

"It is not clear that the (assumed) benefits of adding fluoride to drinking water outweigh risks of neurodevelopment or other effects such as dental fluorosis. Given the serious consequences of learning and developmental disablities, a precautionary approach is warranted to protect the mo most vulnerable of our society."

2006

• The highly respected US Environment Working Group states that "we now have more, and more consistent, evidence against fluoride than we had against DDT when it was banned".

• The US National Research Council publishes its report after a 3 year study. Although directed initially at the 4ppm maximum level of fluoride allowed in water by the US EPA, it is highly relevant to water fluoridatuon generally. This is confirmed by Drs Theissen and Limeback. A number of subgroups of the population are identified as being at particular risk, including bottle fed infants.
• The ADA and CDC issue a watered down warning not to use fluoridated water for making up infant formula. The CDC later has ethics caharged levelled against it for downplaying the risks identified in the NRC Review.
• Dr Elise Bassin's bone cancer study is published in Cancer Causes and Control.
• A Hong Kong study shows that a change as small as 0.2 ppm of fluoride in the water supply has measurable effects on dental fluorosis rates. (The NRC review examined 6 studies showing a proportioanlity between dental fluorosis rates and other adverse health effects.

2005

• An article in the British Medical Journal states that the UK Government (and hence fluorodation promoters generally) misrepresent the York Review and selectively use unreliable research to support their position.
• Dr Elise Bassin's bone cancer study, showing an age-related link between fluoridated water and bone cancer in adolescent males, completed in 2001, is discovered. It had been supressed by her PhD supervisor, who had pro-fluoridation interests.
• The World Health Organisation changes its recognition of sodium fluoride (no mention of silicofluorides) as a medication to "appropriate topical applications" only.

2004

• The Armfield and Spencer study from Australia shows zero benefit to the permanent teeth from fluoridation. Spencer advocates for fluoridated bottled water to give non-fluoridated people the "benefits" he had just proven did not exist.
• Guan et al publish a landmark study showing fluoride's neurotoxic effects.

2002

• Following the public relations disaster of the York Review, the UK Goverment commissioned the Medical Research Council, which it funds, to do another "review" to counteract the York Review findings. This "review" introduces the lie that the York Review found a 15% increase in caries free children in fluoridated areas. The York panel publicly decries this lie, which continues to be repeated by fluoridation promoters to this day (2008). The MRC as a whole is roundly criticised by Lord Baldwin, of the York advisory board, as being biassed and trying to "second guess" the York Review without the balance of panel members or transparency seen in the York Review (the MRC panel was stacked with dentists and health department members)

2000

• The University of York publishes its systematic review ("The York Review") of epidemiological (population) studies only (It omits laboratory studies and patient case histories). Established by the UK Government to "prove once and for all that fluoridation [was] safe and effective", it examined over 3000 studies and found no reliable evidence to support claims made for fluoridation. Fluoridation promoters subseqeuntly misrepresent the Review as supporting fluoridation, as repeatedly stated by panel members.

1999

• Featherstone publishes research in Oral Medicine and Epidemiology showing that fluoride's effect is topical, and that swallowing it has no significant, or perhaps any, benefit. The American Dental Association and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention publish confirmation in 1999 and 2001.