In “Fluoride on Trial: The Censored Science on Fluoride and Your Health,” a new documentary airing on CHD.TV Saturday, Jan. 13, attorney Michael Connett and Children’s Health Defense’s Mary Holland expose the long history of government and industry suppression of scientific research revealing the toxic effects of fluoride, particularly on children.

A new documentary airing Jan. 13 on CHD.TV exposes the long history of government and industry suppression of scientific research that reveals the toxic effects of fluoride, particularly on children.

“Many people, when they think of fluoride, they think of shining white teeth and white-coated dentists,” said attorney Michael Connett. “It’s like American apple pie. It’s just considered such an essential part of our living today in the modern world.”

Connett and Children’s Health Defense President Mary Holland are featured in the new documentary, “Fluoride on Trial: The Censored Science on Fluoride and Your Health.”

“What most people think of, when they think of fluoride, is ‘It’s good for your teeth,’” Holland said.

But according to Connett, this widespread understanding is a consequence “of the federal health authorities not being open and not being honest with the public about what they were finding on fluoride toxicity.”

Contrary to popular belief, Connett said, fluoride’s primary mechanism for preventing tooth decay is through topical contact with the outside of tooth enamel, not by ingesting it — a fact acknowledged by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in deposition footage shown in the documentary.

Decades of scientific research show that ingested fluoride has toxic effects on the human body and perhaps most importantly, that fluoride has neurotoxic effects on children.

But the long history of government data suppression and censorship, combined with uninformed coverage by mainstream U.S. media, means that instead of having a science-based and reasoned debate, the public is presented with a caricature of the fluoride public health issue, according to Connett.

The media presents a false image of “settled science” supporting water fluoridation on one side and “crackpots who wear the tinfoil hats” who are concerned about fluoride on the other.

“It’s a disservice to the public. It’s a disservice to the trade of journalism. And frankly, it’s sad to see,” Connett said.

The documentary seeks to set the record straight.

Connett is the lead attorney in a lawsuit filed by Fluoride Action Network, Food & Water Watch and others against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), seeking an end to water fluoridation.

In 2016, a group of six nonprofit organizations and several individuals petitioned the EPA to end fluoridation of drinking water in the U.S. based on evidence of health risks associated with fluoride, namely neurotoxicity.

The EPA rejected the petition, leading Fluoride Action Network, Food & Water Watch and others to sue the EPA in 2017.

The plaintiffs argued that water fluoridation violates the EPA’s Toxic Substances Control Act and that fluoride is neurotoxic and lowers children’s IQ. The EPA denied water fluoridation causes harm.

The first phase of that trial took place in federal court in San Francisco in June 2020. However, the judge in the case put the proceedings on hold pending the release of the National Toxicology Program’s (NTP) systematic review of research available on the neurotoxic effects of fluoride.

The NTP is a federal research body within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). It studied the neurotoxic effects of fluoride for seven years before issuing its draft report in 2022, consisting of a literature review and a monograph.

“The reports say that the evidence consistently associates fluoride exposure with reduced IQ [in children],” Connett told Holland.

The draft was finally released under court order in March 2023, after top officials from HHS and CDC blocked the NTP from releasing it, according to emails obtained via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests by the plaintiffs in the case.

With the draft report available for review, the second phase of the trial is set to begin Jan. 31 in San Francisco. A ruling is expected early this year.

The documentary shows a behind-the-scenes account of the political pressures that have been brought to bear — by HHS, the CDC, the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, the surgeon general’s office, the chief dental officer for the Public Health Service and by lobbying groups like the American Dental Association — to “weaken, delay or kill” the NTP report, the key document in the trial.

Clips from depositions show the EPA’s own expert witnesses conceded that fluoride is a neurotoxicant.

Yet, efforts to suppress the report continue. Today, almost two years after the NTP scientists said the report was finalized, the final draft has still not been published.

The film does a deep dive into the long history of suppression of the science on fluoride, beginning in the 1940s, when the Public Health Service was considering fluoridating water and studied potential health effects.

The Public Health Service found that communities with high levels of fluoride in their water — higher than the proposed fluoridation rates — showed toxic effects from fluoride exposure including bone disease, cataracts and other issues.

Connett said:

“It was clear that the Public Health Service approached this data not as something to inform the public with, but something that was potentially detrimental to their promotion of water fluoridation and not to be shared with anyone. And they adhered to that. …

“And that was at the very beginning of this policy.”

The film shows fluoride’s little-known role in The Manhattan Project, where scientists needed both uranium and fluoride to build the bomb. Fluoride toxicology studies from that research, which often took the form of experiments performed on unknowing human subjects, were covered up. Scientists lied about their results and government policy blocked publications.

“The early foundation upon which our fluoride safety standards are based, and which so much of our public understanding of fluoride is based, it was corrupted,” Connett said.

And that laid the groundwork, he said, for today’s “cultural environment … where people [think] of fluoride as … really healthy.”

Holland asked Connett if there was any justification for keeping fluoride in the water today.

Connett responded:

“Your brain doesn’t need fluoride. Your thyroid gland doesn’t need fluoride. Your bones don’t need fluoride. The only part of your body that may benefit from fluoride are your teeth. And you can get the fluoride to your teeth through a very simple, elegant mechanism. You put it in toothpaste, you brush it on and you spit it out.”

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