UKCAF website

Fluoridation - genuine science or a medical cult?

How reliable are the claims of the fluoride proponents when it comes to public health information?

The shadowy world of the fluoridation movement. The pro-fluoridation world is totally reliant on misinformation and deception. Below you will find a few short notes on the main advocates of fluoride - the 'underground' devotees who have tunnelled away in the shadows attempting (and very often succeeding) to infiltratate the medical establishments of the UK, USA, Australia and a number of other countries. Despite all common sense and caution, they have persuaded highly gullible medical (and especially dental) workers and health authorities that fluoride is some sort of magic bullet that will solve the non-existent world dental health crisis. They have even succeeded in convincing the World Health Organisation (WHO) that fluoridation should be adopted in countries where fluoride poisoning is already rife.

The players. Some members of the fluoridation movement represent themselves as scientific experts, although many have no scientific credentials whatever. They despise anyone opposing their views, calling them the 'anti-fluoride fringe', and implying that they are mere 'activists' with no technical expertise. Against these die-hards are ranked the almost exclusively self-funded private sector organsations attempting, and generally succeeding, to convince the public just how deluded these fluoridation fanatics really are. Invariably, in any public meeting in which both sides of the arguments are presented in a balanced format, the public overwhelmingly rejects the claims and arguments of those advocating fluoridation.

In fact there is overwhelming evidence that it is the fluoride enthusiasts, and not the general public, that are deluded. Whenever they are challenged by reputable scientists, they repeatedly resort to denying or misrepresenting any inconvenient evidence that threatens to expose the fallacies of their irrational beliefs. Over 1,600 professionals have signed a statement calling for an end to water fluoridation worldwide. (Click here to see this)

The new cult of fluoridation. The fluoride proponents' insistent demands for water fluoridation have taken on the mantle of a religion. So irrational have they become that their behaviour can only be described as a form of pseudo-scientific fundamentalism. In debate they rely on an utterly predictable and irrational creed, endlessly repeating the same tired and discredited old mantra, irrespective of any evidence that exposes the fallacies of their beliefs and the manifest falseness of their promises.

The British Fluoridation Society
and its financial link
with the Treasury

The British Fluoridation Society (BFS) is the front organisation for the Government's declared policy to spread water fluoridation across the country regardless of public resistance. Objectors are dismissed as being ignorant and in need of education. The BFS issues literature that goes far beyond the acceptable boundaries of truth and reliability; its flagship document 'One in a Million' is a classic example of propaganda masquerading as fact, and has been widely derided by the scientific community.

Stopping the BFS's pocket money! In return for its promotional activities, the BFS has received well over £1 million from the Treasury over the years, but recently this funding has been closely questioned in Parliament, and finally stopped. It is possible that this was because some Society members were in the habit of describing fluoridated water as being able to prevent dental decay. Since this product has no relevant medicinal licence, it is a statutory offence to make any such medicinal claims, and it would be improper for the Treasury to fund any such activities from the public purse.

The new dental disease epidemic. The objective of the BFS and its allies is to persuade the Government, the Health Sector, and the public that the entire water supplies of Britain should have their fluoride content 'adjusted' to the mythical 'optimum' level to prevent dental caries. In its single-minded drive to contaminate every household's water supply with this toxic chemical, it devised a cunning plan - a strategy aimed at seducing every level of society into believing its crack-pot notion that mixing a toxic chemical with the nation's water supplies will in some magical fashion eliminate 'dental health inequalities'. In fact it actually increases such inequalities, because only more affluent parents can afford the consequential need for remedial cosmetic dentistry for their children!

"Fashionable" - are you serious? Fluoride advocates lightly dismiss the inevitable side effect of all new schemes - an epidemic of an entirely different mouth disease, enamel hypomineralisation, often accompanied by an increase in mouth and gum disease. They call this by the apparently innocuous and dumbed-down description of 'dental fluorosis'. Incredibly, some of its members even claim that children consider this condition 'attractive', or even 'fashionable'! So ask your own child - how would you like teeth like this?

Which child will it affect? Make up your own mind about the motives of this Society - click on the 'BFS Mission Statement' button opposite to see how they are really going about trying to expose the entire population of Britain to their mad medication. No - this is not the gentle, caring picture they prefer to put out now; this is the original, unexpurgated version! In Ireland and elsewhere, one child in eight develops this 'fluorosis of cosmetic concern' - that's three or four in every schoolroom. Will this happen to one of your children?

Who really benefits from fluoridation? The BFS likes to describe its proposed contamination of the water supplies as 'supplementing sub-optimal fluoride levels', inevitably ignoring the fact that there is absolutely no biochemical or medical condition of 'fluoride deficiency'. Far from curing an existing disease, they promote the spread of an epidemic of a new disease, fluorosis, indicating chronic fluoride poisoning, that will affect at least half of the children in any community exposed to the practice.

The only possible beneficiaries are the dentists themselves, whose private dental practices will boom, now that they are generating regiments of new patients needing remedial cosmetic treatment.

If it's not broke, then why try to 'f'ix' it! Only recently the Chief Dental Officer for the UK, Dr Barry Cockcroft, claimed that 'We have the lowest rate of dental decay in Europe'.* So just what is behind this mad race to impose tooth-damaging fluoridation on a nation with 'the best teeth in Europe'? If our children already have such excellent teeth, why would anyone want to damage all of the teeth of half of them in this deranged and obscene manner?

(* Dr Barry Cockcroft, Chief Dental Officer, UK Government. BBC TV News at One, 16th January 2008)

The National Fluoride Information
Centre

Going 'up-market'. The Government's fluoridation research funding has now been boosted by a £2 million a year grant to cover salaries at its new high profile fluoride front organisation, the National Fluoride Information Centre at Manchester University. The Centre is under the management of Professor Robin Davies, Director of the Dental Health Unit in Manchester for Colgate Palmolive Ltd., a leading manufacturer of fluoridated toothpastes.

'Independent' - really? Like the BFS before it, the Centre claims to provide independent advice on fluoridation. Its website tends to suggest that the emphasis is very much in favour of the pro-fluoride arguments, and we do not recommend it as a reliable source of guidance on the full range of public health hazards of water fluoridation. And in any case, with heavy Government financial backing and obvious pharmaceutical industry involvement, we wonder just from whom is this outift supposed to be independent?