Sans Fluoridation, Cavities Plummet. With Fluoridation Cavities Soar

Cavities Declined 'Remarkably' Without Fluoridation. With Fluoridation Tooth Decay is a Crisis

Without water fluoridation or lower sugar intake, Nordic countries’ tooth decay rates declined “remarkably” and was sustained for over 50 years. Fluoride toothpaste use was promoted combined with free oral health care brought The Nordic child populations from having among the highest tooth decay rates in the world to the lowest. (European Journal of Oral Sciences, by Nyvad and Fejerskov (June 12, 2025)

This “indicates that toothbrushing with fluoride toothpaste is a robust population strategy that should be promoted as a valid alternative to community water fluoridation for the control of dental caries,” they write.

The authors suggest that similar results could possibly be achieved without fluoride. Toothbrushing, even without fluoride, may remove cavity-causing biofilm in the mouth which could play a significant role in the cavity decline.

Dental fluorosis (which has greatly increased in prevalence and severity in the US) “reflects a toxicological effect of the total daily fluoride intake on enamel formation, irrespective of the source,” they write.

“Legal and ethical aspects of fluoride applications have seldom been addressed in relation to public oral health strategies. This is particularly problematic for community water fluoridation, by which large groups of people may be obliged to drink fluoridated water against their will without being informed about potential adverse health effects including the increased risk of dental fluorosis. For these reasons, Veneri et al. have referred to community water fluoridation as a form of “mass medication.” Although such an approach might in some countries have been tolerated in the 1960s and 1970s at a time when dental caries prevalence was extremely high, the caries prevalence in most industrialized countries is now so low that violation of individual rights to medical self-determination, ignoring potential adverse effects of fluorides, can no longer be accepted,” they write.

Without Water Fluoridation, Japan's Cavity & Tooth Loss Rates Fell  Dramatically for 40 Years

Twelve-year-old Japanese children's cavity rate declined by 75% since 1993, while the number of 80-year-olds retaining 20 or more teeth rose from 10% in 1993 to more than 50% in 2016, according to BMC Public Health.

The research, by Yoshihisa Yamashita, D.D.S, Ph.D., of Kyushu Dental University, describes Japan’s experience as a “natural social experiment” that could reshape how public health experts address preventing dental cavities at the population level.

Unlike many other high-income countries, Japan has historically limited fluoride exposure during childhood — which makes the country a “unique and underexplored case.”

Initiatives targeted the unique characteristics of each life stage to support the normal development of tooth and mouth functions from fetal to early childhood and dental health programs at school.

Poughkeepsie, NY, stopped fluoridation in 2008. Then decay rates fell for three years in a row, according to NYU researchers.

More examples of de-fluoridation causing no increase in cavities

Examples of Water Fluoridation Fails

-- In Ireland, where fluoridation is required country-wide, 40% of 75-year-olds and older have no natural teeth, according to the Ireland Dental Health Foundation. Twenty-five percent  of ages 1-9 years old have untreated decay in their baby teeth, according to the World Health Organization.

-- In Australia, 89% fluoridated, 34% of 5-year-olds have cavities with higher  prevalence in children of Indigenous background, low‐income households and in regional and remote areas. (International Journal of Pediatric Dentistry). 42% and 24% of children aged 5–10 years and 6–14 years, respectively, had experienced dental caries in their primary teeth and permanent teeth. (International Journal of Public Health)

-- Despite a 100% fluoridation rate in Singapore, 50% of children have tooth decay by kindergarten, according to National Dental Centre Singapore

In Chile, with wide-spread water fluoridation and milk fluoridation, "dental caries remains a significant health problem; 50% of 4-year-olds have a history of dental caries, and more than half (55%) of individuals aged 15 years and older present non-treated carious lesions, according to Frontiers in Oral Health

-- Hong Kong is 100% fluoridated. In the 2024/25 school year, kindergarteners who had the highest tooth decay prevalence lived in low income cities. Cavity rates are 35% and 37%,  In contrast, wealthier districts saw the lowest rates in the city, with only 20% of children suffering from cavities.

USA Faces Both a Tooth Decay and Fluoride-Overdose Epidemic Concurrently because Fluoridation Doesn't Reduce Tooth Decay

In the US where fluoride is big business, protected by corporate interests, organized dentistry and chemical companies, 70% of US children and adolescents are fluoride over-exposed, afflicted with dental fluorosis – some of it moderate/severe. Yet, the US faces a crisis in dental care, according to Senator Bernie Sanders who is fighting for better teeth for Americans.

 -- In North Dakota, despite a 96.5% fluoridation rate and dental sealants, 60% of 3^rd grade children have tooth decay  23.6% have untreated decay  

-- In Florida which was about 80% fluoridated for decades until it was banned in 2025 had an oral health crisis which was and is among the worst in the nation.

-- In New York City which is 100% fluoridated since 1965, "more than one in three third-grade students have untreated tooth decay...[and] one in four adults ages 65 and older have no teeth." according to the New York City Department of Health

In Queens county, a borough in New York City where all the water is fluoridated, "Caries [tooth decay] outpatient visit rate per 10,000 - Aged 3-5 years" is higher than both NON-fluoridated Nassau's and Suffolk's rates combined, even though all three are geographically connected on Long Island, NY

-- New York State Dept of Health statistics show that fluoridation has no correlation to less tooth decay or less dental visits to hospital ED's

In North Carolina, despite an 88% fluoridation rate, 40% of Kindergarteners have cavities.

-- In the US, this chart shows fluoridation has no correlation to socio-economic-status across all US states.

Shamefully, US military veterans are more likely to lose Teeth, suffer pain, and struggle to access regular dental care. Older US veterans are much more likely to have had at least six teeth removed (31%) than older nonveterans (20%), according to Carequest.

American Indian/Alaskan Natives (AI/AN) "by the age of 5, over 80% of AI/AN dental clinic patients have ECC [early childhood caries]," according to the Indian Health Service. Over 40% of AI/AN preschool children have untreated tooth decay requiring restorative treatment, such as a filling, crown, or extraction.

Tooth decay crises are occurring in all fluoridated cities, states and countries because Americans need dental care - not fluoride, which isn't a nutrient or essential for healthy teeth, so there's no scientifically valid reason to add it to drinking water.,

Politic$ not science supports fluoridation because the cavity/diet connection was well-known in the 1930's when Dentist Weston Price found and reported about populations across the world who had good diets but virtually no tooth decay without fluoride, toothbrushes or dentists. 

                                              END IT

                                                

January 25, 2026 Marks 81 Years of Fluoridation Fake Science (Part 2)

Respected, honest and science-based  fluoridation opponents were suppressed since the early days of fluoridation, according to Bette Hileman in Chemical & Engineering News (1988) who gives names and details. It hasn't stopped. 

Present day champions of safe water are detailed in the new book, Fluoride Harm: Suppressed Science and Silenced Voices, which documents the retribution endured for those openly opposing fluoridation. They followed the science, not PR or endorsements. They are dentists, MDs, PhDs, Journalists, professional water engineers, a film maker and activists, including Erin Brockovich.

Here are some of them:

Dentist Hardy Limeback, BSc, PhD, was vilified, attacked, and threatened to be de-licensed for opposing fluoridation despite his being a published fluoride researcher, preventive dentistry university professor, and a hands-on-dentist unlike most fluoridation promoters.

Robert Dickson, MD, faced the same retribution for opposing fluoridation based on the science; he had to face a Canadian tribunal trial. He was exonerated on three of four charges – 1) fluoridation science 2) free speech and 3) practicing outside the scope of his medical training.  To put the issue behind him, he conceded to, and was fined for calling public health medical/dental officers liars despite having evidence to prove it.

Dentist Bill Osmunson, DDS, MPH promoted fluoridation until some of his patients urged him to read the literature. “It was like a punch in the gut,” he says.  Now, he dedicates his retirement to stopping water fluoridation. Osmunson is honored to be invited to sit on a National Fluoridation Commission of experts, including opponents and proponents, to review fluoridation science. Dr. Osmunson was instrumental in getting the National Toxicology Program to review fluoride neurotoxicity science  and for the FDA to restrict the use of ingestible unapproved fluoride drugs. Questioning authorities on fluoridation has taken a toll on his health, family, and practices.

Dentist David Kennedy, DDS, MIAOMT, author of the book, “How to Save Your Teeth: Toxic-Free Preventive Dentistry,” producer and director of the documentary “Fluoridegate: an American Tragedy,” past president of the International Academy of Oral Medicine & Toxicology says “By focusing on fluoridation instead of diet and dentist-access, organized dentistry allowed a national dental health crisis to occur on its watch and created a new one – dental fluorosis (fluoride overdose symptoms).”

Kathy Thiessen, PhD, a member of the US National Research Council’s panel studying fluoride’s toxic effects says, “The [2006] report considers fluoride to be an endocrine disrupter, and did not rule out a carcinogenic effect of fluoride.” EPA failed to act upon the 2006 NRC panel’s advice.

Thiessen writes, the Association of State and Territorial Dental Directors (ASTDD), with input from the NYS Dept of Health, CDC and others tried to derail her career by writing to her boss suggesting that she was communicating misinformation about water fluoridation. She writes, “Ironically, a paper that ASTDD said I should use with respect to fluoride effectiveness contained essentially the same data as the paper that ASTDD objected to my using. Both papers used data from a 1986-1987 survey which, in fact, show essentially no difference in caries experience with respect to fluoride concentration in drinking water, but a very clear dose response for both prevalence and severity of dental fluorosis (Heller et al., 1997; Iida and Kumar, 2009). I just wasn’t supposed to point this out.” Her chapter is free here  https://childrenshealthdefense.org/community/suppressed-science-and-silenced-voices-book-political-corruption-water-fluoridation-chapter-26-thiessen/

Dr. J. William Hirzy Jr., PhD, retired EPA scientist and past President of the EPA Professionals Headquarters Union in Wash DC (NTEU280) which opposed fluoridation starting in 1985. Details here   He writes, “…scientists and technicians in eleven EPA unions, have been steadfast since the 1980s and ‘90s in our condemnation of politically determined fluoride contaminant levels and of the intentional pollution of drinking water with fluoridation water additives.” Dr. Hirzy says his chapter, “Malpractice: Civil Service Labor Union’s Opposition of Water Fluoridation,” is his “epistle to my countrymen and to the world on scientific integrity in organized federal labor. My final message is: Don’t let the bastards get you down.”

Australia’s Dr. Mark Diesendorf, Bsc, PhD’s chapter entitled, “My Struggle for a Serious Debate about Fluoridation,” reflects his sincere desire to have an open discourse between opponents and proponents on the legitimate science of fluoridation. Instead, he writes, “Throughout my campaign, proponents of fluoridation attempted to suppress and discredit me with dishonest arguments and misrepresentation." Two case studies are in his chapter; more are here.

His experience and research exposed techniques used by the establishment for suppressing scientific and public questioning of fluoridation and for damaging the credibility of anti-establishment experts including: censorship by scientific, medical, and dental journals; intimidating professionals who have concerns about fluoridation; characterizing falsely that opponents are cranks, right wing extremists, or alternative health ‘faddists.”

Florida Surgeon General, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, MD, PhD writes in the Forward of the book that he now recognizes some of his Harvard Medical School education verged on indoctrination, including reverence for water fluoridation. Studies from China, linking fluoride to lower IQ, ignited his concern as did Harvard’s Dr. Phyllis Mullenix’ PhD published peer-reviewed research linking fluoride to neurotoxic effects (Mullenix was fired for failing to bury this evidence) and Dr. Ashley Malin's, (University of Florida epidemiologist and psychologist) findings that “prenatal fluoride exposure was associated with increased neurobehavioral problems.”

Dr. Limeback writes a chapter about the attacks on Dr. Christine Till, PhD, clinical neuropsychologist, and Psychology Professor at York University in Canada. Dr. Till’s research, after intense scrutiny, was published in JAMA Pediatrics. Dr. Limeback writes, “The pandemonium that followed after Dr. Till and her team published their research was similar to the lead industry’s attacks on Dr. Herbert Needleman’s, MD, lead and IQ research. This was not a scholarly debate on the neurotoxicity of fluoride. Rather, this became an attack on epidemiology followed by scurrilous personal attacks on the scientists.”

Fluoride Action Network Science Advisor, Dr.Paul Connett, PhD and author of the science based book. The Case Against Fluoride writes “A particularly nasty example of this political effort to derail science was a letter sent to Dr. Christine Till’s University in an effort to have her reprimanded or dismissed for unprofessional conduct, when in reality her only offence was to publish top quality studies on fluoride’s neurotoxicity. This blatant form of intimidation should have no place in science.”

Activist, Erin Brockovich, author of several books including Superman is not coming: Our National Water Crisis and What We the People Can Do About It, writes “what I discovered is that there are more grants and government assistance programs to promote using our community drinking water systems as medical dispensaries than to make drinking water safe to consume Why is the fluoride advocates‘ lobby so large and well-funded?” "Fluoride doesn’t belong in drinking water. Period," she writes. 

More co-authors will be listed (when time allows).

Meanwhile, pro-fluoridationists are held to very low standards. For example

Freedom of information requests by a small town in North Dakota uncovered profanity-laced emails and a misuse of CDC funds and astroturfing by fluoridationists such as Dr. Johnny Johnson, president of the American Fluoridation Society; Jim Kershaw, Bismarck, North Dakota’s water plant superintendent and others.

Dr. Johnson has lied about me to legislators, too. It's very revealing that the American Dental Association endorses his group.

Another American Dental Association colleague, dentist J. Kumar, former New York State Dept of Health Dental Director and retired California Dental Director has been accused of  scientific fraud.  

Part 1, "Voices of Fluoridation Opposition Were Suppressed Since Its Beginning & Persists Today"      is  here:   

Voices of Fluoridation Opposition Were Suppressed Since Its Beginning & Persists Today (Part 1)

Voices of Opposition have been Suppressed Since the Early Days of Fluoridation, by Bette Hileman in Chemical & Engineering News (1988)

Ever since the Public Health Service (PHS) endorsed fluoridation in 1950, detractors have charged that PHS and the medical and dental establishment, such as the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Dental Association (ADA), have suppressed adverse scientific information about its effects.

Some of those who generally support fluoridation make similar charges. For example, Zev Remba, the Washington Bureau editor of AGD Impact, the monthly publication of the Academy of General Dentistry, wrote last year that supporters of fluoridation have had an “unwillingness to release any information that would cast fluorides in a negative light,” and that organized dentistry has lost “its objectivity-the ability to consider varying viewpoints together with scientific data to reach a sensible conclusion.”

The dozen or so scientists C&EN was able to contact who have done research suggesting negative effects from fluoridation agree on this aspect. They all say that fluoridation research is unusual in this respect.

If the lifeblood of science is open debate of evidence, scientific journals are the veins and arteries of the body scientific. Yet journal editors often have refused for political reasons to publish information that raises questions about fluoridation. A letter from Bernard P. Tillis, editor of the New York State Dental Journal, written in February 1984 to Geoffrey E. Smith, a dental surgeon from Melbourne, Australia, says: “Your paper . . . was read here with interest,” but it is not appropriate for publication at this time because “the opposition to fluoridation has become virulent again.” The paper poses the question: Are people ingesting increasing amounts of fluoride and can they do so with impunity?

Sohan L. Manocha, now a lawyer, and Harold Warner, professor emeritus of biomedical engineering at Emory University medical school in Atlanta, received a similar letter in 1974 from the editor of AMA’s Archives of Environmental Health. The editor rejected a report Manocha and Warner submitted on enzyme changes in monkeys who were drinking fluoridated water because of reviewers’ comments such as: “’l would recommend that this paper not be accepted for publication at this time” because “this is a sensitive subject and any publication in this area is subject to interpretation by antifluoridation groups.”

These papers were subsequently published in prestigious British journals. Science Progress (Oxford) and Histochemical Journal. Many other authors have reported similar difficulties publishing original data that suggest adverse effects of fluoridated water.

Most authoritative scientific overviews of fluoridation have omitted negative information about it, even when the oversight is pointed out. Phillipe Grandjean, professor of environmental medicine at Odense University in Denmark, wrote to the Environmental Protection Agency in June 1985 about a World Health Organization study on fluorine and fluorides:

“Information which could cast any doubt on the advantage of fluoride supplements was left out by the Task Group. Unless I had been present myself. I would have found it hard to believe.”

In his 1973 Ph.D. thesis on the fluoridation controversy, Edward Groth III, a Stanford biology graduate student at that time, concluded that the vast majority of reviews of the literature were designed to promote fluoridation, not to examine evidence objectively. Groth also noted a number of antifluoridation reviews that were equally biased.

According to Robert J. Carton, an environmental scientist at EPA., the scientific assessment of fluoride’s health risks written by the agency in 1985 “’omits 90% of the literature on mutagenicity, most of which suggests fluoride is a mutagen.”

Several scientists in the U.S. and other countries who have done research or written reports questioning the benefits of fluoridation or suggesting possible health risks were discouraged by their employers from publishing their findings. After their paper had been rejected by the editor of Archives of Environmental Health, Manocha and Warner were told by the director of their department not to try to publish their findings in any other U.S. journal. NIDR had warned the director that the research results would harm the cause of fluoridation. Eventually, Manocha and Warner were granted permission to publish their work in a foreign journal.

In 1982, John A. Colquhoun, former principal dental officer in the Department of Health in Auckland, New Zealand, was told after writing a report that showed no benefit from fluoridation in New Zealand that the department refused him permission to publish it.

In 1980, Brian Dementi, then toxicologist at the Virginia Department of Health, wrote a Comprehensive report on ‘Fluoride and Drinking Water” that suggested possible health risks from fluoridation. This 36-page study has been purged from the department’s library even though it is the only one the department has prepared on the subject. According to current employees, no copy exists anywhere in the department. Spokesmen say the report was thrown away because it was old but also say the department will be preparing another report on the subject soon.

Carton: EPA document omitted 90% of mutagenicity studies

An ADA white paper written in 1979 states: “Dentists’ nonparticipation [in fluoridation promotion] is overt neglect of professional responsibility.” An ADA spokesperson says this is still the association’s official policy. In recent years, several dentists who have testified on the antifluoridation side have been reprimanded by their state dental officers.

ADA and PHS also have actively discouraged research into the health risks of fluoridation by attacking the work or the character of the investigators. As part of their political campaign, they have over the years collected information on perceived antifluoridation scientists, leaders, and organizations. Newspaper articles about them are stored in files, as are letters about them from various proponents of fluoridation. Little or no effort has been made to verify the accuracy of this information. It is used not only in efforts to counteract arguments of the antifluoridationists, but also to discredit the work and objectivity of U.S. scientists whose research suggests possible health risks from fluoridation.

One example is the false information about the late George L. Waldbott, founder and chief of allergy clinics in four Detroit hospitals, that ADA disseminated widely to discredit the validity of his research. Rather than deal scientifically with his work, ADA mounted a campaign of criticism based largely on a letter from a West German health officer, Heinrich Hornung. The letter made a number of untrue statements, including an allegation that Waldbott obtained his information on patients’ reactions to fluoride solely from the use of questionnaires. ADA published Hornung’s letter in its journal in 1956 and distributed a news release based on the letter. ADA later published Waldbott’s response to this letter. But the widely disseminated original news release was not altered or corrected, and continued to be published in many places. As late as 1985, it was still being quoted. Once political attacks effectively portrayed him as “antifluoridation,” Waldbott’s work was largely ignored by physicians and scientists.

In November 1962 and 1965, ADA included in its journal long directories of information about antifluoridation scientists, organizations, leaders, and others known to be opposed to fluoridation. Listed in alphabetical order were reputable scientists, convicted felons, food faddists, scientific organizations, and the Ku Klux Klan. Information was given about each, including quotes from newspaper articles, some of which contained false data. The information was published for use by proponents of fluoridation in local fluoridation referenda. Waldbott's book A Struggle With Titans, details his struggles. 

John S. Small, information specialist at the National Institute of Dental Research, is quite willing to talk about the files he keeps on antifluoridation organizations and their leaders. “Of course, we gather information,” he says. ‘”These people are running all over the country opposing fluoridation. We have to know what they are up to.” Consumer advocate Ralph Nader has a different view of this activity. He calls it an “institutionalized witch-hunt.”

It is easy to understand why research on risks of fluoridation has never been more vigorously pursued. Most of the individuals and agencies involved have been promoting fluoridation publicly for nearly 40 years. Research that suggests possible harm threatens them with a loss of face. For example, PHS has historically been the principal source of funds for fluoride research: but ever since June 1950, PHS has been officially committed to and responsible for promoting fluoridation. Thus, the agency has a fundamental conflict of interest.

Colquhoun, now teaching the history of education at the University of Auckland, offers another explanation for what appears to be the suppression of research. He notes that the editorial policy of scientific journals has “generally been to not publish material which overtly opposes the fluoridation paradigm.” Scientific journals employ a referee system of peer review. But when the overwhelming majority of experts in an area from which the referees are selected are committed to the shared paradigm of fluoridation, Colquhoun notes, the system lends itself to preservation and continuation of the traditional belief that fluoridation is safe and effective. This results in “single-minded promotion, but poor-quality research, and an apparent inability to flexibly reassess in the presence of unexpected new data,” he says.

Part 2  reveals modern day fluoridation opponents who have been, not only vilified, but threatened with loss of their licenses or jobs. Some were fired for telling the truth. Most are detailed in the book "Fluoride Harm: Suppressed Science and Silenced Voices" with profits going to environmental groups