At the virtual press conference posted below, Professors Paul Connett, PhD and Vyvyan Howard, MB. ChB. PhD. FRCPath, along with Ellen Connett and former BBC journalist Michele Paduano, reveal the details of the BBC’s unprofessional efforts to withhold important information about the new science on the potential dangers posed by community water fluoridation. Fluoridation is the flawed and outdated practice of adding a fluoridated chemical to the public drinking water, ostensibly to lower tooth decay.
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Press Conference Order:
1. Paul Connett, PhD
2. Michele Paduana, former BBC journalist [20:55]
3. Dr. Vyvyan Howard [31:20]
4. Ellen Connett [39:00]
5. Chris Neurath, FAN Science Director [43:35]
6. Q & A [55:00]
The new science hidden from the public by the BBC
Fluoride poses a threat to the developing brains of children. Emeritus professors Connett and Howard have written to BBC’s Tim Davie and Samir Shar twice this year about the institution’s inability to cover both sides of the scientific issues accurately and professionally. The BBC complaints department replied to us, without seriously dealing with our detailed and well-documented concerns (see letters at bottom of this bulletin #1-4).
The details on the science of fluoride’s threat to the developing brain with a subsequent loss of intelligence will be provided by Connett and Howard, who between them have spent many years following and researching the studies on fluoride’s impact on the developing brain.
These studies began in China in the 1980’s (references 5,6,7) and culminated in groundbreaking high-quality mother-offspring fluoride IQ studies funded by the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) beginning in 2017 (ref. 8-13). 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). It was further recognized in an historic U.S. Federal Court rulingin Sept 2024 which stated:
“Plaintiffs have proven, by a preponderance of the evidence, that water fluoridation at the level of 0.7 mg/L – the prescribed optimal level in the United States – presents an unreasonable risk of injury to health.”
It should be noted here that the UK recommended level is 1 mg/L some 30% higher than the American level of 0.7 mg/L.
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.
Meanwhile, two recent UK government funded studies have indicated that the promoters’ claims for the benefit of water fluoridation reducing tooth decay have been 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 (discussed above) 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 e.g. the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and the ADA (American Dental Association) than on the above peer-reviewed science, a major governmental review and a Federal Court ruling in the USA.
How many glasses of fluoridated water have pregnant women drunk since this failure by the BBC to warn the public of this potential harm to the developing brain of their offspring?
After Michele, we will hear from Ellen Connett, who will explain that while encouraging pregnant women to avoid fluoride is an important start, it is not a complete solution. We need to ensure that young girls from the first day of their lives are not deliberately exposed to fluoride. Why? Because fluoride accumulates in the body, mainly in the bones and it has a long half-life (estimated at 20 years). According to Castiblanco-Rubio et al., and others, “The increased bone turnover of pregnancy has the potential to also release skeletal stores of fluoride…”
The importance of this story.
Currently, about 6.6 million people in England drink fluoridated water (which started in 1966) 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.
In short, the BBC is not protecting the public when it does not present the full facts to 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 must place a greater trust in the intelligence of the British public when it comes to threats posed to their children’s health.
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 complaints department. We never heard from Tim Davie himself.
Note in this second reply from the BBC complaints department, it claims that the BBC’s position is in line with the majority view, which they say ranges from
“…the World Health Organization, US Centre for Disease Control, the American Dental Society (sic) and others – that adding fluoride to water is safe and reduces dental decay.”
Here in their own words is precisely the problem – two of their “trusted” authorities are the most aggressive promoters of fluoridation in the world, namely the CDC and the American Dental Association and the third authority, the World Health Organization, has not reviewed the central issue of fluoride’s impact on the brain. No wonder, the BBC’s reporting has been so shallow and biased, they are relying on partisan sources or those who have not reviewed the issue in question.
And as far as the “safety” claim is concerned they are using these “self-serving” sources to negate a major review by the foremost body specializing on toxicology in the world, namely the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP, 2024).
To see this issue as merely a difference in opinion between ourselves and the BBC trivializes a very serious matter. Central to this matter is a question of which authorities can be trusted on a serious public health issue. The BBC chose to rely on very one-sided, biased sources to dismiss concerns about fluoride’s impact on the brain even though its news department was informed that far more reliable sources in the USA indicated that there was a problem. Moreover, they did this at a time when the UK government was expanding the program in question.
We should note for the record that professor Howard is an infant and foetal 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.
Unlike the BBC news department Connett and Howard are very well-informed about this issue and have been for thirty and twenty years respectively.
Neither the BBC nor the UK government can claim that they were not warned about the science which demonstrated fluoride’s threat to the brain, nor the major events unfurling in the USA related to these reported scientific findings. Listed below are links to recent letters sent to the BBC’s Director General (ref. 1-2) and four letters (ref. 14-17) sent to three consecutive British Prime Ministers (Johnson, Sunak and Starmer) from 2021, by Howard, Connett, and colleagues.
References
1. 1st Letter to BBC, 14 April 2024:
2. 2nd Letter to BBC, 21 May 2024:
https://fluoridealert.org/connett-howard-2nd-letter-to-bbc-21-may-2025/
3. BBC’s 1st response: 9 May 2025:
https://fluoridealert.org/connett-howard-bbc-response-to-1st-letter-9-may-2025/
4. BBC’s 2nd response: 3 July 2025:
https://fluoridealert.org/connett-howard-bbc-2nd-response-july-3-2025/
5. He H, et al. (1989). Effects of fluorine on the human fetus. Chinese Journal of Control of Endemic Diseases 4:136-138. [Chinese text | FAN Translation. Republished in the journal Fluoride 41(4)321–326, Oct-Dec 2008. Available at,https://fluoridealert.org/he-1989/
6. Hu YS, et al. (1989). Investigation of students’ intelligence quotient aged 6-14 years old in the endemic fluorosis area. Collection of papers and abstracts of 4th China Fluoride Research Association. Quiyang, China, 6:73. [Chinese text | FAN Translation]. Available at, https://fluoridealert.org/hu-1989-2/
7. Ren Da-Li, et al. (1989). A study of the intellectual ability of 8-14 year-old children in high fluoride, low iodine areas. Chinese Journal of Control of Endemic Diseases 4:251. [Chinese text | FAN Translation. Republished in the journal Fluoride, 41(4)319–320, Oct-Dec 2008. Available at, https://fluoridealert.org/ren-1989/
8. Bashash et al. (2017). Prenatal Fluoride Exposure and Cognitive Outcomes in Children at 4 and 6–12 Years of Age in Mexico. Environmental Health Perspectives, 125:9. Sept 19. Available from, https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/EHP655
9. Green et al. (2019). Association Between Maternal Fluoride Exposure During Pregnancy and IQ Scores in Offspring in Canada. JAMA Pediatrics. 173:10. Available from,
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2748634
10. Till et al. (2020). Fluoride exposure from infant formula and child IQ in a Canadian birth cohort. Environment International, 134:105315. January. Available from, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412019326145
11. Cantoral et al. (2021). Dietary fluoride intake during pregnancy and neurodevelopment in toddlers: A prospective study in the progress cohort. NeuroToxicology, Dec. Available from,
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0161813X21001005?via%3Dihub
12. Hall et al. (2023). Fluoride exposure and hypothyroidism in a Canadian pregnancy cohort. Science of The Total Environment. 15 April. Available from,
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969722082523
13. Singh et al (2025). Prenatal and Childhood Exposure to Fluoride and Cognitive Development: Findings from the Longitudinal MINIMat Cohort in Rural Bangladesh. Environmental Health Perspectives. 5 March. Available from,
https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/EHP14534
14. 1st Letter to Boris Johnson, 28 August 2021. From Howard & Connett. Re: Government’s Water Fluoridation Policy Paper (Health & Care Bill 2021), threat to the developing brain. Available from,
https://fluoridealert.org/uk-howard-connett-micklem-letter-to-pm-aug-28-2021/
15. 2nd Letter to Boris Johnson, 27 December 2021. From Howard & Connett. Re: Water Fluoridation Policy Paper (Health & Care Bill 2021), threat to the developing brain. Available from,
https://fluoridealert.org/howard-connett-letter-to-pm-dec-27-2021/
16. Letter to Rishi Sunak, 15 June 2023. From Howard & Connett. Re: Water Fluoridation Policy Paper (Health & Care Bill 2021), threat to the developing brain. Available from,
https://fluoridealert.org/pdf-letter-to-rishi-sunak-15jun23/
17. Letter to Keir Starmer, 1 October 2024. From Howard, Peckham & Connett. Re: Water Fluoridation Policy Paper (Health & Care Bill 2021), threat to the developing brain. Available from,
https://fluoridealert.org/howard-peckham-connett-letter-to-starmer-1oct-2024/
List of 99 Fluoride IQ Studies 1989-2025.
Part 1. 87 Fluoride IQ Studies Reporting Lowered IQ. Available from,
https://fluoridealert.org/studytracker/part-1-87-fluoride-iq-studies-reporting-lowered-iq/
Part 2. 12 studies: 11 Fluoride IQ Studies Reporting “No Effect”; and 1 study that shows a large increase in IQ. Available from, https://fluoridealert.org/studytracker/iq-studies-reporting-no-effect-and-one-study-that-shows-a-large-increase-in-iq-part-2/
It is also important to point out that two studies have reported lowered thyroid function related to fluoride exposure. These are important because it is well known that when a woman’s thyroid function is lowered, she has an increased risk of producing offspring with lowered intelligence.
UK: Peckham et al. (2015). Are fluoride levels in drinking water associated with hypothyroidism prevalence in England? A large observational study of GP practice data and fluoride levels in drinking water. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 69:619-624. Available from, https://jech.bmj.com/content/69/7/619
CANADA. Malin et al. (2018). Fluoride exposure and thyroid function among adults living in Canada: Effect modification by iodine status. Environment International, 121(Part 1):667-674. Available from,
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016041201830833X
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