Ten reasons to STOP fluoridation

1. Not effective

Many large-scale, population-based fluoride efficacy studies show there is little or no difference in tooth decay rates between fluoridated and non-fluoridated countries, cities and regions. (See our Summary of water fluoridation for study details). In fact, several rigorous large-scale studies show the only correlation with water fluoridation is the increased incidence of dental fluorosis, i.e. damage to the teeth.

Perhaps the most significant large-scale study was published in 2014 by the WHO Global Oral Health Program, using statistics measuring decayed, missing and filled permanent teeth (DMFT) amongst 12 year olds from industrialised western countries between 1970 and 2014. (Click on chart in RH column). 

That study clearly showed that fluoride treatments (including water and salt fluoridation) do not reduce dental decay and that the substantial decline in tooth decay over the last 70 years has occurred just as precipitously in fluoridated and non-fluoridated countries. In fact this decline began in the 1920s or early 1930s, well before fluoride was first added to public water supplies, and continued probably due to improved overall nutrition and dental hygiene. To attribute this decline to fluoridation is simply wrong.

The large 2014 WHO study also shows that several countries without fluoride and without fluoridated salt are actually performing better than Australia where around 90 per cent of our population receives fluoridated water.

Also, the early fluoride studies on which fluoridation is based (conducted between 1942 and 1955) are extremely poor quality, with many errors and weaknesses since exposed. We also highlight these in our Summary of water fluoridation.

Unfortunately, this poor quality standard has continued with all subsequent fluoride efficacy studies – used by fluoridating governments to protect and promote fluoridation – also notoriously lacking in quality and rigour. This lack of quality is glaringly obvious in the results of the Cochrane Review (2015) – the largest and most comprehensive review of water fluoridation efficacy science ever conducted. Not one single published Australian fluoride efficacy study met the relaxed inclusion chriteria for this review and all of the 19 studies included were poor quality.

Also see our detailed article: Water fluoridation is NOT effective

2. Not safe

There are more than 2,000 published, peer-reviewed studies and reviews showing fluoridation chemicals can damage the developing brain, bones/joints, teeth, eyes, kidneys, thyroid gland and pineal gland, cardiovascular system; inhibit enzymes and cell proteins and contribute to iodine deficiency. All of these studies are available on this Study Tracker.

These include:

• 455 studies on the skeletal system, including 75 studies on arthritis;
• 294 studies on the mechanisms by which fluoride damages cells, including 155 on oxidative stress;
• 237 studies on the brain, including 95 studies on cognitive function;
• 182 studies on the kidneys, including 64 studies on the heightened risks faced by kidney patients.

Amongst the numerous studies showing fluoride’s damage to our skeletal system, we review a recent study, showing that post-menopausal women consuming fluoridated water at 1mg/L were 50 per cent more likely to experience hip fractures.

There are several major studies showing how fluoridation chemicals affect the endocrine system and especially damage the thyroid gland. We review three major studies here.

For a summary of the major harms caused by fluoride, also see this article. We also highlight 39 recent studies here.

3. Especially harmful to our young

There are 58 water fluoridation studies associating fluoride with neurodevelopmental damage, providing compelling evidence that fluoride exposure during the early years of life damages a child’s developing brain.

Twelve of these studies are reviewed here, including six rigorous Mother-Offspring studies showing the relationship between maternal fluoride ingestion and subsequent lowered IQ in their children.

Four of these studies were funded by the US NIEHS (Bashash, 2017, 2018; Green, 2019 and Till, 2020) and found damage to the brain in children exposed to fluoride (either at the fetal or infant stages of life) in fluoridated communities at 0.7ppm or at doses at or less than used for fluoridation in Australia

4. Toxic waste

Hydrofluorosilicic acid, used for water fluoridation, is a toxic, hazardous, contaminated waste product taken from pollution control systems during the manufacturing of phosphate fertiliser. Insoluble phosphate rock is heated to 300 degrees and sulfuric acid is added to create soluble super-phosphate for agricultural purposes. In the process, this strong chemical reaction results in two extremely hazardous waste gasses being emitted – hydrogen fluoride (HF) and silicon tetrafluoride (SiF₄). Fortunately, a “scrubbing” process (the spraying of fine jets of water in the chimneys of the processing plants) captures these dangerous gases. The resulting chemical compound is hexafluorosilicic acid or hydrofluorosilicic acid, otherwise known as H2SiF6 – a highly-toxic, extremely hazardous, ‘Schedule 7 Poison’.

This waste chemical – so acidic it can eat through steel and concrete, requiring special handling and storage equipment – is otherwise largely unsaleable and has never been tested safe for consumption. It is carted in special holding containers from the Incitec Pivot fertiliser processing plant near Geelong in Victoria to Port Macquarie-Hastings. Without any processing or treatment it is then added directly to PMH’s public water supplies using a sophisticated fluoride dosing plant that was installed at a cost of $1.8 million.

More details here.

5. Costly

Fluoridation costs Council and Ratepayers approximately $280,000 annually, to add a declared poison to our water. That involves the addition of around 60 tonnes of hydrofluorosilicic acid to PMH’s public water supplies annually.

Fluoridation is extremely wasteful, with only about one per cent of fluoridated water being actually consumed, and the remainder being used for bathing, washing, hosing cars, gardens, boats etc.

Dental care is the responsibility of the state, not local councils. Yet the entire cost burden is passed to councils, an example of cost-shifting from the responsible party to another party, in this case local councils and water authorities. The fact that water fluoridation is now known to be dentally ineffective means this cost is both unnecessary and pointless, as well as posing a distinct risk to health.

6. Unpopular

Not even five per cent of the world fluoridates their water; 98 per cent of Europe have rejected fluoridation based on toxicity, efficacy and ethics. Of the nearly 200 independent countries worldwide, the vast majority never started fluoridation. About 20 ceased after starting.

According to the British Fluoridation Society, in decreasing order of rates of fluoridation:

• Only eight (8) countries fluoridate over 50 per cent of their population: Singapore; Brunei; Australia; Malaysia; Republic of Ireland; United States; Chile; New Zealand;
• Eight (8) countries fluoridate 10-44 per cent of their population: Canada; Brazil; Fiji; Guyana; Panama; Guatemala; Spain; United Kingdom;
• Seven (7) countries fluoridate less than 10 per cent of their population: Argentina; Libya; South Korea; Papua New Guinea; Vietnam; Serbia; Peru.

Of the 151 independent countries of Europe, only four fluoridate any percentage of their population: Republic of Ireland; Spain; United Kingdom; Serbia. By population, only 1.8 per cent of Europe is fluoridated to any degree (13.5 million out of 748 million).

Reasons for countries not fluoridating their public water supplies include: not dentally effective; dangerous to health; unethical forced medication; wasteful and polluting; deprives people of free will, choice, and responsibility.

There is continuing community opposition to fluoridation in most if not all countries and regions that fluoridate the majority of their population. That opposition is driven by people learning of the emerging evidence of adverse health effects from fluoride consumption, in contrast to the failure of fluoridating governments to publicly recognise the potential for adverse effects.

More details here.

7. Forced on us

Fluoridation that is forced on us via the public water supply violates medical ethics, offering no choice, no consent, no health warnings and no regard for an individual’s health circumstances. Forced fluoridation could only be ethical if it was genuinely proved to be both safe and effective for all sectors of the population. But that is not the case.

In NSW, for example, once a water authority begins fluoridation (by choice or government direction), fluoridation cannot be stopped without the approval of the Director General of NSW Health. The NSW Fluoridation of Public Water Supplies Advisory Committee is responsible for considering any water authority request to either cease fluoridation or reduce the concentration of added fluoride. Minutes of meetings of the FPWSAC show that no such request has ever been granted. Without official approval to cease, water authorities are compelled to continue fluoridation on pain of ongoing penalties that are currently $550 per day ($200,750 for a year).

The compulsory nature of water fluoridation is being brought into sharp relief due to rapidly growing, high quality evidence of potential harm to the developing brain of fetus, infant, and young child. Parents who wish to protect their offspring from those risks are compelled to buy fluoride-free water, or purchase a reverse osmosis system or distillation unit for use during pregnancy and beyond. They must also take care not to prevent consumption of fluoridated reticulated water from the tap, or foods and beverages made with fluoridated water.

People who are especially sensitive to fluoride (e.g. those with certain thyroid, kidney and digestive dysfunctions) must also invest both money and their own persistent vigilance so as to avoid consuming fluoridated tap water or foods and beverages made with fluoridated water.

And with the emerging evidence (Helte 2021) that consuming water fluoridated at 1mgF/L, can DOUBLE the risk of hip fracture in post-menopausal women, the problem of forced fluoridation must be viewed as generally dangerous, impossibly inconvenient, and unnecessarily expensive for large sections of the population.

8. Difficult to remove

You can’t remove fluoride with most common jug filters, instead, more expensive Reverse Osmosis (RO) filters are normally required. Also, even RO filters don’t remove all the fluoride. By contrast, chlorine in water can be fairly readily removed by brief boiling, by agitation, to enable the chlorine to “gas-off” in air, or by using a common jug filter.

Even when RO water filters are used to remove most of the fluoride or if you buy expensive (and environmentally unfriendly) bottled water, there are multiple other sources of fluoride exposure due to the general water supply containing fluoridation chemicals. Most processed foods and beverages use fluoridated water therefore will contain fluoride. More here.

9. An entrenched policy

NHMRC has endorsed fluoridation since 1953, but they have never financed even their own recommended health safety studies, and their reviews have excluded many available toxicity studies.

The NHMRC’s 1991 fluoridation review was remarkably forthcoming, with numerous recommendations for health safety monitoring and studies to be undertaken. Some of those safety measures were reported to be “imperative”. The 1999 NHMRC fluoridation review repeated many of those concerns, and significantly elevated the previously reported concerns about health risk from fluoridation for people with kidney impairment. Yet in around 2004, both those reviews were “archived” by NHMRC, due to what was reported in correspondence at the time as a “lack of resources” to conduct the recommended monitoring and studies.

At the same time, in 2004, water fluoridation was adopted as part of the national health policy, and the expansion of fluoridation across all parts of Australia has been pursued with bureaucratic vigour since then. For example, around 95 per cent of the NSW population now has fluoridated water forcibly delivered to them via their household taps, with absolutely no warnings about potential dangers to health.

Subsequent NHMRC fluoridation reviews, in 2007 and 2016, have rejected the authority of the emerging published science, declaring water fluoridation at 0.6 – 1.1 mgF/L to be unconditionally “safe” to general health and dentally “effective”. (Note: the lower concentration is available to hotter areas, where water consumption is higher. NSW is fluoridated at 1mgF/L universally, despite large locational variations in temperature.)

It is hard to understand why this pervasively irresponsible assumption of safety continues, unless for the purpose of protecting the reputations of NHMRC and all those who have endorsed and promoted fluoridation over decades.

10. A failed experiment

Water fluoridation may at first have seemed like a good idea. But the studies that first supported water fluoridation have been found to be of poor quality, even very poor quality when errors in mathematical calculations and other poor methodology are taken into account.

With recent, growing published evidence of both dental ineffectiveness and potential for harm to health, it seems essential to the health of the nation that this experiment must end. Instead, we need universal dental care for all Australians, like Medicare.