ADA State President stoops to lying
A State President of Australia’s peak dental body has stooped to new lows by publicly lying about water fluoridation, a dangerous, scientifically-flawed and ethically-invalid health intervention.
We have already had cause to write to Dr Kathleen Matthews, President of the NSW branch of the Australian Dental Association (ADA), responding to her misleading and even false statements in the media on this subject. Specifically, on 16 March 2021, we published an Open Letter concerning her comments in the media about fluoridation in Port Macquarie-Hastings.
We received no reply and, because of the significance of this matter, are now addressing the ADA for corrective attention.
Last week Dr Matthews stooped to new lows, this time blatantly lying. On 13 April Dr Matthews was quoted extensively in an article published in the Oberon Review, titled; ‘Gives everyone a fair go’: Oberon fluoride move welcomed by dental group.
In our Open Letter of 16 March to Dr Matthews, we provided a summary of numerous published studies showing an association between fluoridation chemicals and neurodevelopmental damage. In particular, six studies and two major reviews conducted since 2017 (after NHMRC’s most recent fluoride review was published), confirm impaired neurological development in infants and children as a result of water fluoridation, at exposure levels the same or less than from artificial water fluoridation concentrations or levels in Australia.
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 (either at the fetal or infant stages of life) either in fluoridated communities at 0.7ppm or at doses commonly experienced in fluoridated communities.
One Canadian study (Riddell, 2019) found children in fluoridated areas are nearly three times more likely to develop ADHD or ADHD symptoms than those in non-fluoridated areas.
In total, 58 published water fluoridation studies have confirmed the association between fluoride consumption and damage to the developing brain.
Apart from neurological damage, there are many other published studies showing various physiological damage caused by fluoridation chemicals. (see below)
Additionally, every fluoridating country, including Australia, admits Dental Fluorosis is a risk and a measurable adverse effect of ingesting industrial-waste fluoride. Even NHMRC admits 25 per cent of children in NSW have some form of fluorosis and at least 3.4 per cent of NSW children have moderate to severe fluorosis, requiring expensive repair or treatment. However, there are good reasons to believe that even these well-accepted fluorosis figures are probably drastically understated.
For Dr Matthews to state there is “no evidence of any negative health effects associated with water fluoridation at recommended levels in Australia”, despite being aware of this science, is therefore an OUTRIGHT LIE.
Does the ADA support and condone lying to the public, even by their state presidents, in order to defend this controversial, scientifically outdated health intervention?
Such statements cannot be made honestly without completely ignoring the findings of the comprehensive Cochrane Review (2015), which assessed all available fluoride efficacy studies conducted between 1951 and 2015. That review concluded there are no reliable, quality fluoride efficacy studies showing any benefit to adults, or to vulnerable or disadvantaged groups, and that fluoride is associated with rising levels of dental fluorosis.
Dr Matthew’s claims are an arrogant disregard of science, and blatantly misleading to the community.
Dr Matthews and the ADA seem desperate to protect fluoridation by relying on very poor- to extremely poor-quality studies. But that’s what fluoridation is all about. The studies Dr Matthews is referring to above are such poor quality they did not meet the relaxed inclusion criteria for the Cochrane Review (2015). In fact NOT ONE published Australian fluoride efficacy study was good enough for this comprehensive review. For more details, see our Open Letter.
These statements also completely disregard the numerous large-scale Australian and international studies and reviews clearly showing there is no difference in dental decay rates between children consuming fluoridated water and those consuming unfluoridated water.
Although we are not able to review all of these studies here, we highlight two Australian and two international large-scale studies, as follows:
- In 1996, a large Australian study by Spencer, Slade and Davies claimed in their abstract that the results support water fluoridation. In fact the study found an average difference in tooth decay in permanent teeth (DMFS) between children who lived their whole life in fluoridated versus non-fluoridated communities of between 0.12 and 0.3 tooth surfaces per child. Amongst 128 tooth surfaces, that’s an absolute saving of only 0.09 to 0.23 per cent, i.e. a small fraction of one percent.
- In 2004, Australian pro-fluoridationists Jason Armfield and John Spencer from the University of Adelaide studied dental health records of 13,000 children in South Australia, comparing children aged 10 to 15 years who had always drank fluoridated water for all their lives to children who had never drunk fluoridated water. Their paper reported “no significant difference” in decay of permanent teeth, but subsequently they publicly denied their own result.
- In 2009, the multi-million-dollar, long-term Iowa Fluoride Study, funded by the US National Institute of Health, monitored 600 Iowa children from birth to adolescence over a 12-year period. This study found no significant difference in tooth decay rates between fluoridated and unfluoridated groups. However, the study did find yet again that fluoride intake was significantly associated with dental fluorosis.
- 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 1960 and 2014. This extensive study clearly showed that fluoride treatments (including water and salt fluoridation) do not reduce dental caries and that the substantial decline in tooth decay over the last 70 years has occurred just as precipitously in fluoridated and non-fluoridated countries. This 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.
For more details, references, and other studies, refer to our article Water fluoridation is not effective.
There is no credible evidence remaining that fluoridation assists dental health. If ADA is actually concerned with Australian dental health – as of course it should be – it would immediately abandon its archaic support for water fluoridation and cease misleading the nation about this matter.
We absolutely agree with this statement, and support serious attention being given to oral health. But water fluoridation is very evidentially not the answer, being scientifically defunct and unsupportable.
With around 90 per cent of Australians receiving fluoridated water (around 96 per cent in New South Wales), and with disturbingly high rates of tooth decay, we are amazed that Dr Matthews and the ADA refuse to acknowledge water fluoridation is obviously NOT WORKING.
There have been many reviews conducted over the past 25 years regarding the general health effects of ingesting fluoridation chemicals, however few have concluded fluoridation poses no clear health risk at the levels of artificial fluoridation and each one of these apparently-favourable studies appears to be sponsored by a fluoridating government.
Fluoride toxicity science has increased substantially in the last 10 to 15 years and most of the mother-infant studies have occurred within the last five years so it would be extremely unlikely that an independent review today would arrive at such a callous, irresponsible and outstandingly biased conclusion.
Conversely, we are aware of more than 1,900 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.
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.
Only two weeks ago a Swedish study (Helte et al, 2021) was published. This large, high-quality study, involving a cohort of more than 4,000 older women, found that post-menopausal women consuming fluoridated water at 1mg/L fluoride or less and from other sources, were at least 50 per cent more likely to experience hip fractures and therefore have a higher risk of death. More details of this major study are available HERE.
In particular, the significant US NIH-funded developmental neurotoxicity studies conducted since NHMRC’s 2017 fluoride review, strongly indicating potential harm from fluoridation to the developing brains of our children, cannot continue to be ignored.
We ask how the ADA and NHMRC can continue to rely on such biased, poor quality evidence supporting fluoridation while systematically and egregiously dismissing or ignoring ALL evidence showing fluoride in a disparaging light. ADA, is this what science is really all about?
We agree wholeheartedly that all Australians deserve the right to good oral health. Accordingly, Fluoride Free Australia supports the Grattan Institute’s responsible recommendation for the federal government to introduce a Medicare-style universal insurance scheme for primary dental care, to ensure all Australians can go to the dentist when they need to.
The ability to visit the dentist regularly is an important part of good oral health, while adding a toxic, hazardous industrial waste chemical to our drinking water is undoubtedly one of the most reckless, ineffective, unsafe and absurd health interventions ever made.
In conclusion, we are bringing to the ADA’s attention this serious complaint about untruths being conveyed under your name regarding water fluoridation. We request your response to our questions, your immediate consideration of the accumulating evidence showing water fluoridation is neither safe nor effective, and a re-think about the implications of lying to and misleading the Australian public.
The evidence is now conclusive. It is time for everyone who genuinely cares about better oral health to recognise the mounting evidence against the safety and effectiveness of water fluoridation and to join in ensuring that all Australians can access proper dental services.
A ‘must-watch’ video: Top scientists sound the alarm on fluoride’s risk to the developing brain
