The wide scale US acceptance of fluoride-related compounds in drinking water and a wide variety of consumer products over the past half century is a textbook case of social engineering orchestrated by Sigmund Freud’s nephew and the “father of public relations” Edward L. Bernays. The episode is instructive, for it suggests the tremendous capacity of […]
News Archive
Welcome to the Fluoride Action Network News Archive. The FAN News Archive serves as an historical repository for fluoride news stories, positive or negative. Since FAN catalogs all news stories on fluoride, our news section remains a reliable database of all published fluoride news.
Our news database is categorized by country, state/province, and industry. This collection of articles is constantly being updated with the most recent global news on fluoride-related issues and events.
CDC: U.S. oral health improvements mixed
A new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is once again putting the country’s oral health disparities in the spotlight. The report, issued May 31 by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, found that while the presence of tooth decay has declined over the last two decades, more than […]
WVU study shows fluoride in water supply does not reduce tooth decay
A new study conducted by researchers at West Virginia University shows that fluoride added to the U.S. public water supplies have not reduced tooth decay. The WVU Rural Health Research Center used federal statistics to conduct the study, according to a news release. The research concludes that children in urban areas who are more exposed […]
SMITHERMAN v. U.S.
SMITHERMAN v. U.S. VIRGINIA A. SMITHERMAN, Administrator of the Estate of Trentina Valencia Smitherman, deceased, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Defendant-Appellee. No. 11-14300, Non-Argument Calendar. United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit. Filed April 2, 2012. Before CARNES, BARKETT and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges. DO NOT PUBLISH PER CURIAM. Virginia Smitherman, proceeding pro se, appeals […]
Studies show no advantage to low-fluoride toothpaste
March 30, 2012 (Tampa, Florida) — Low-fluoride toothpastes do not reduce the risk for fluorosis but increase the risk for caries in very young children, according to a meta-analysis presented here at the American Association for Dental Research (AADR) 2012 Annual Meeting. “There is no evidence to support the use of low-fluoride toothpaste in preschoolers,” […]
International Bottled Water Assoc. disputes New York Times on children’s cavity rates
The International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) issued the following statement regarding a March 6, 2012, New York Times article concerning recent increases in children’s cavity rates: “The New York Times article, Preschoolers in Surgery for a Mouthful of Cavities, (March 6, 2012), notes that the causes of increased dental problems in young children vary, from […]
ADA: “we still do not know how much fluoride is required to prevent caries”
The goal of this project is to establish the minimum concentration of fluoride needed to prevent enamel and root caries. The lack of knowledge about “the target concentration of fluoride required in the oral environment to optimize its potential for caries prevention” has inspired the NIDCR to issue a call for research to answer this […]
In New Jersey, a battle over a fluoridation bill, and the facts
For all its renown as an engine of pharmaceutical and biotechnology progress, New Jersey has long lagged in what public health officials call one of the 10 biggest health advances of the last century: fluoridating its water. While 72 percent of Americans get their water from public systems that add fluoride, just 14 percent of […]
The Atlantic: What do we know about fluoride?
The government has been drugging us for years. Since the 1940s, municipalities across the United States have been voluntarily adding fluoride to their water supplies. Fluoride, as we all learned in elementary school, protects teeth against cavities. You’ll find it in toothpaste and in vitamin supplements. Children regularly get fluoride treatments at the dentist. We […]
NYT Letters: Fluoridation Pro and Con
To the Editor: Re “Dental Exam Went Well? Thank Fluoride” (Personal Health, Jan. 24): When the three of us (retired professors in chemistry, physics and biology) wrote a book on the fluoridation controversy, we hoped it would raise the level of the debate. In “The Case Against Fluoride,” our arguments were supported with numerous scientific […]