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Unprecedented Success 25 Years In the Making
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An Unprecedented Year of Success For Our Movement

2025 marks the Fluoride Action Network’s 25th anniversary protecting citizens from overexposure to fluoride and working to end water fluoridation, and we’re happy to announce that two decades of steady progress and support from all of you has resulted in an unprecedented year of success for our entire movement. That’s saying a lot, since together we have accomplished so much over years to reach this point (see FAN’s Accomplishments).

2026 could very easily also be one of the last where water fluoridation is still practiced in the United States. We’re honestly that close. I think you’ll agree when you read through the list of recent developments below. 

But the pro-fluoridation lobby isn’t giving up. Remarkably, they’re continuing to follow their old playbook of doubling down in support of the practice. This means that we can’t let up now; our opponents are doing everything they can to delay our ultimate victory. We have to keep our historic momentum while we still have strong allies at the state and federal level ready to act. Our victories this past year put us in a position where the future of fluoridation could be ours to decide. 

Over the next month, I’ll be sharing bulletins going into further detail about many of these accomplishments, as well as what we expect and plan to accomplish over the coming year. 

Here are the recent developments worth celebrating as supporters of FAN: 

  • In May of 2024, a study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), which found that in fluoridated Los Angeles, the children of mothers with higher fluoride exposures during pregnancy had double the odds of several neurobehavioral problems compared to mothers with lower exposures. Funding for the study was provided by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This was the 10th consecutive study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since 2012 on fluoride and the developing brain that has linked fluoride exposures experienced in fluoridated communities to developmental neurotoxicity. 

  • In its August 2024 monograph and January 2025 meta-analysis published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the National Toxicology Program (NTP) confirmed this link. The NTP is the highest-level review in the country, part of the National Institutes of Health, with highly qualified scientists using only the most valid methodologies. They spent nearly nine years conducting a systematic review, which was peer reviewed by the National Academies of Sciences and Medicine, HHS, and CDC, and approved unanimously by two independent committees of subject matter experts in toxicology, epidemiology, and neurodevelopment. Their systematic review concluded that higher water fluoridation concentrations “are consistently associated with lower IQ in children.” NTP’s monograph cited 64 out of 72 studies on the matter linking fluoride to neurotoxicity, an 89% consistency. They found that 18 out of the 19 highest-quality studies (95%) linked higher fluoride with lower IQs, many at levels in fluoridated water or only slightly higher. Its meta-analysis, which consistently found this same link, concluded that “the more fluoride a child is exposed to, the more likely that child’s IQ will be lower than if they were not exposed.”

  • The NTP data and testimony from several of the world’s leading scientists on neurotoxicity were used extensively in a September 2024 ruling by a federal court. FAN, along with a coalition of environmental nonprofits, sued the EPA in 2016 over developmental neurotoxicity, and the court ruled that water fluoridation as practiced in the U.S. “poses an unreasonable risk of reduced IQ in children.” The court immediately ordered the EPA to take regulatory action to eliminate this risk. The EPA has appealed our case, not based on the science or the conclusion that fluoridation is harmful, but on weak procedural arguments. FAN has just replied to the EPA’s appeal, and we expect the appellate court to make a decision in 2026. Once we win the appeal, the EPA has the opportunity to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, or they have 1 to 2 years to promulgate rules that require either a warning for pregnant women and children not to drink fluoridated tap water or rules that prohibit the sale of fluoridation chemicals for use in water systems. 

  • Since the federal court ruling, over 75 towns, cities, and counties serving water to approximately 30 million people have ended or suspended water fluoridation with bi-partisan support, and many with FAN’s help. FAN is currently helping dozens of other communities work to end the practice in the coming months, and we don’t see this momentum slowing. In the past month alone, the city of Santa Fe, New Mexico, ended fluoridation for their 90,000 residents followed by the city of Pasco, Washington for their 80,000 residents. 

  • Over the summer, the Surgeon General of Louisiana, Dr. Ralph Abraham, publicly called for an end to water fluoridation in his state. His announcement followed that of Florida’s State Surgeon General, Joseph Ladapo, MD, PhD, who held a press conference last November to announce that the state of Florida would be advising all communities within the state to stop adding fluoridation chemicals to the public drinking water due to the neurotoxic risk the practice poses to the developing brain. FAN is working to get other state health officials to make similar statements.  

  • On March 27th, the Governor of Utah signed the nation’s first state law prohibiting the addition of fluoridation chemicals to public drinking water. This law was passed overwhelmingly with support from over 2/3rds of each legislative body. 

  • In July, legislation banning fluoridation in Florida became law. It was proposed by the Agriculture Commissioner as part of the Farm Bill due to our federal lawsuit victory and the neurotoxicity science. The bill passed overwhelmingly out of four separate House committees and two Senate committees and received bi-partisan support from both bodies during floor votes. It also had the support of Governor DeSantis and the State Surgeon General. 

  • In 2025, bi-partisan legislation to prohibit fluoridation was introduced in an unprecedented 18 states. Even more bills are expected to be introduced in additional states in the coming weeks.

  • Bi-partisan bills were introduced in 9 of the 12 states that mandate fluoridation to reverse those laws: Ohio, Kentucky, Georgia, Minnesota, Mississippi, South Dakota, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Nebraska. The Kentucky bill has over 40 co-sponsors and passed out of the House by a vote of 68-29. We’re hoping it will pass out of the Senate this year.

  • The Iowa Department of Natural Resources is now taking a similar step as Florida, urging communities to end fluoridation. In Idaho, the Department of Environmental Quality has eliminated its fluoridation grant program and no longer promotes the practice. In Hawaii, the water operators on all 8 of the big islands have made public statements calling for a prohibition of fluoridation.

  • The Governor of Oklahoma has passed an executive order ending the state’s promotion of fluoridation and requiring all state agencies, including the Department of Health, to remove all pro-fluoridation web pages and documents. He has ordered a review of the safety of fluoridation, which is being organized. 

  • Led by FAN board member, Dr. Bill Osmunson, FAN spent over 10 years petitioning the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to end the sale of ingestible fluoride prescriptions supplements for children. This summer, the FDA coordinated a public hearing with key stakeholders, including FAN, and reviewed the safety and legality of fluoride drugs meant for ingestion by children. FAN provided testimony, and Dr. Osmunson was a key expert at the hearing. On October 31st, the FDA announced the first step in their crackdown on fluoride supplements, prohibiting their use on children under the age of 3. This is a huge victory, with more likely to come. 

  • FAN is also working to educate senior officials in the EPA and HHS about the dangers of fluoridation, and offer advice on a path forward ending the practice.. In the coming months, US Health and Human Services representatives are expected to review the safety of fluoridation and make new recommendations based on their findings. The EPA is also conducting their own review of fluoridation safety and will hopefully reduce the allowable level of fluoride in water so as to protect vulnerable populations. The only way to do this is to end the practice altogether. FAN is working to ensure we’re a stakeholder in this decision-making by the EPA and HHS.  

  • …and much more. Details to come over the next month.

We Can’t Win Without Your Support

Our hope is that you will continue to help us defend the vulnerable children living in fluoridated communities and give them the gift of normal brain development, as well as protect other vulnerable subpopulations, including those with hypersensitivities, dental fluorosis, and kidney, liver, or thyroid impairment.

Unlike our opposition, we don’t have corporate sponsors or government grants to fund our work. FAN depends on individual donors and small family foundations to ensure we have the resources necessary to lead the worldwide campaign against fluoridation.  Your tax-deductible donation to will go directly towards these efforts.

This December, the goal necessary to fund our important 2026 operating budget will be $150,000 from 600 donors by midnight Pacific Time on December 31st. All donations, large and small, are crucial to us and are tax-deductible. Your generosity will not just inspire action, it will facilitate it.

Recurring Donations: One way to make a donation more manageable is to spread it over the year by pledging so much a month. A pledge of $10 a month gives us $120 a year and a pledge of $25 a month gives us a massive $300! These recurring donations add a solid rock on which we can rely upon throughout the year.

How to Make a Tax-Deductible Donation:

If you should experience difficulty donating online, or have any questions about wire transfers or anything else fundraising related, please email us for assistance: donate@fluoridealert.org

You can also mail checks to:

Fluoride Action Network

PO Box 85 

North Sutton, NH 03260

**Please note that some corporations match tax deductible donations made by their employees to some non-profits. FAN qualifies for this program. Here is the information to provide your corporate finance staff: the parent body for FAN is the American Environmental Health Studies Project, Inc. (EIN#: 62-1599535)

Thank you for your continued support, 

Stuart Cooper

Executive Director

Fluoride Action Network