REPORTING EMBARGOED UNTIL 5 PM ON TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2025
Professors Paul Connett, PhD and Vyvyan Howard, MB. ChB. PhD. FRCPath, along with former BBC journalist Michele Paduano, will hold a virtual press conference via Zoom on Tuesday, November 18th at 4:00 PM (GMT) to reveal the shocking details of the BBC’s efforts to withhold key facts about the new science on the potential dangers posed by the practice of adding a fluoridation chemical to the public drinking water, ostensibly to lower tooth decay.
Zoom Press Conference Information:
Time: Nov 18, 2025 at 4 pm UK time (GMT), 11 AM Eastern time (USA)
URL: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81024126410
Meeting ID: 810 2412 6410
Passcode: 112830
The details on the science of fluoride’s potential harm to the developing brain will be provided by Professors Paul Connett and Vyvyan Howard, who between them have spent decades following and researching the studies on fluoride’s impact on brain development. Professor Howard is an infant and fetal pathologist and Paul Connett, is a retired professor of chemistry, specializing in environmental chemistry and toxicology. He helped to found the Fluoride Action Network in 2000, and was its director for many years. He also co-authored the book “The Case Against Fluoride” in 2010.
The new science hidden from the public by the BBC:
a) that fluoride poses a threat to the developing brains of children,
b) that two UK studies show that fluoridation does very little to reduce tooth decay, and
c) there are far safer ways of achieving the same goal.
These studies began in China in 1989 and culminated in groundbreaking high-quality studies funded by the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) beginning in 2017. The dangers that fluoride poses to the developing brain were confirmed by the U.S. National Toxicology Program in a major review published in 2024 (NTP, 2024) and further recognized in a Federal Court Decision in September 2024 that water fluoridation poses an “unreasonable risk” to children and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should take action to eliminate these risks.
“What this comes down to, as far as its impact on human intelligence is concerned, is that exposure to fluoride during pregnancy can reduce an infant’s IQ by as much as 4 or 5 IQ points and for a bottle-fed infant to double that. In terms of the whole population, such a downward shift in IQ would lead to a halving of the number of very bright children (IQ above 130) and to a nearly doubling of the number of children who will need institutional care, i.e. those with an IQ less than 80,” according to Paul Connett.
Meanwhile, two recent UK government funded studies have indicated that the promoters’ claims for the benefit of water fluoridation reducing tooth decay have been wildly exaggerated (Catfish-2022 and Lotus-2024). To their credit the BBC did cover these studies, but very little, if any, of the studies and events pertaining to fluoride’s threat to the developing brain were covered contemporaneously by the BBC.
Michele Paduano, a former BBC reporter, will explain how attempts to bring this history and these dangers to the public’s attention were thwarted by his editors at the BBC, who felt his story would alarm the public. These editors appeared to have placed greater stock on claims that water fluoridation is “safe and effective” by agencies who are well-known to be promoters of fluoridation (the CDC and ADA in the USA and dental authorities in the UK) than on the above peer-reviewed science, a major governmental review and a Federal Court ruling in the USA.
How many sips of fluoridated water have pregnant women taken since this failure by the BBC to warn the public of this potential harm to the developing brain of their offspring?
The Importance of this story.
Currently, about ten million people in England drink fluoridated water and the government is proposing to fluoridate more communities. UK citizens should know the potential dangers involved with a practice of such limited benefits. They need to be fully informed so that they can make wise decisions about their children’s future.
With the BBC receiving massive funding from the government many have worried that this service would become a tool of government policies. This appears to have happened in the case of the BBC’s poor- even censored – coverage of the dangers posed by the UK government’s water fluoridation program.
“The four of us see ourselves as friends of the BBC, and do not want to see its funding removed. The BBC provides vitally important functions for our citizens, our country and the world, but the kind of censorship that we have revealed here threatens its future. It must be acknowledged and a firm commitment made never again will the BBC violate the trust of the British people in the way it has here. For the public to renew its trust in the BBC it must come clean on what is has done here,” said Connett.
In short, the BBC is not protecting the public when it hides the truth from them. The BBC needs to pay greater respect to solid science; be wary of deferring to “authorities” which have an agenda in the issue at hand and needs to place a greater trust in the intelligence of the British public when it comes to threats posed to their children’s health.
In addition to the references already cited, further information on the above claims and history, can be found in a recently published book, “Fluoride Harm: Suppressed Science and Silenced Voices,” Dr. Hardy Limeback and Karen Spencer (Ed), Heron Lodge Press, McKellar, Canada, 2025. This includes two essays by Connett and Howard and a third by former BBC reporter Michele Paduano. Below are links to two letters sent to Tim Davie and the responses from the BBC complaint department. We never heard from Tim Davie himself.
1st Letter to BBC, 14 April, 2024:
https://fluoridealert.org/connett-howard-letter-to-bbc-davie-14-apr-2025/
2nd Letter to BBC, 21 May, 2024:
https://fluoridealert.org/connett-howard-2nd-letter-to-bbc-21-may-2025/
BBC’s 1st response:
https://fluoridealert.org/connett-howard-bbc-response-to-1st-letter-9-may-2025/
BBC’s 2nd response:
https://fluoridealert.org/connett-howard-bbc-2nd-response-july-3-2025/