"The sugar industry and companies that make sweet drinks and foods have spent nearly a century downplaying sugar’s role in health problems and distorting the science around fluoride — and the practice continues today, according to a new study.
The study, published in the journal Environmental Health, adds to evidence that the industry promoted fluoride as the solution to tooth decay to avoid scrutiny over sugar’s role, and details a close relationship between industry and dental associations and researchers over decades to cooperate on fluoride promotion.
“The sugar and allied industries started by promoting fluoridation as the miracle solution to tooth decay, but are now shifting their efforts to try to defend it from the emerging science showing it may have been lowering children’s IQs all along,” wrote the author Chris Neurath, a research director at the health-focused nonprofit American Environmental Health Studies Project, which advocates for removing fluoride from public drinking water.
The findings come as two states — Utah and Florida — and dozens of communities have banned fluoride in public water, with opposition growing across the US as multiple studies over the past few decades have linked children’s exposure to lowered IQs."
Brian Bienkowski reports for The New Lede September 30, 2025.
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