Open Veils · Answer
Is flouride really good for your teeth?
The cavity-prevention claim has real but modest and contested supporting data, while evidence of systemic harm — particularly to neurological development — has been systematically suppressed or downplayed by the agencies that also promote fluoridation. The 2020 NTP systematic review, blocked from publication for years, concluded fluoride is 'presumed to be a cognitive neurodevelopmental hazard to humans.' RFK Jr. and his advisors at HHS have flagged this suppression publicly. The dental benefit, by the agencies' own numbers, amounts to roughly 15 percentage points reduction in caries prevalence — a figure that has shrunk dramatically as fluoridated toothpaste became ubiquitous.
Evidence
- Fluoride's promotion as a public health miracle traces directly to a Cold War-era institutional arrangement.
- Joseph Mercola and Paul Connett (author of 'The Case Against Fluoride') have long catalogued the peer-reviewed literature showing dose-dependent IQ reduction in children, citing over 50 epidemiological studies, most from China, Iran, and India — regions with elevated natural fluoride.
- The NTP report was held from publication by the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences for over three years.
- Peter Meiers and Phyllis Mullenix's suppressed 1990s research at the Forsyth Dental Center found fluoride accumulated in rat brain tissue and altered behavior — work Mullenix reported was killed under industry pressure.
- The ADA's April 2026 press release reaffirming safety explicitly does not address the NTP neurological findings or the 2024 federal court ruling, an omission critics at the Fluoride Action Network have highlighted directly.