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Fluoride: Facts & Myths
November 18, 2025
12:00 PM CT Noon
Webinar
Free to all members in good standing. As a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization, a small donation is suggested to continue offer educational programs such as this webinar. All donations are greatly appreciated.
This webinar reviews the different aspects of fluoridation, their effectiveness in dental caries prevention and their risks. This discussion includes on interpreting the evidence based on fluoride and IQ.
Fluoride is one of the most abundant elements found in nature. Water is the major dietary source of fluoride. The only known association with low fluoride intake is the risk of dental caries. Initially, fluoride was considered beneficial when given systemically during tooth development, but later research has shown the importance and the advantages of its topical effects in the prevention or treatment of dental caries and tooth decay. Water fluoridation was once heralded as one of the best public health achievements in the twentieth century.
Lately, major concerns about excessive fluoride intake and related toxicity were raised worldwide, leading several countries to ban fluoridation. Health-care professionals and the public need guidance regarding the debate around fluoridation. [NIH- Library of Science]
Objectives
By attending this session, you will be able to:
- Describe fluoride’s benefits, early and recent studies of water fluoridation’s effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, and cost-savings, current recommendations, and the likely impact and costs of discontinuing water fluoridation.
- State the adverse health claims made against community water fluoridation, including recent claims regarding fluoride’s effects, with emphasis on IQ and neurodevelopment.
- Identify the recent studies and reports critical of water fluoridation, including the National Toxicology Program’s Fluoride Monograph, the lawsuit brought against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the JAMA Pediatrics meta-analysis, including their claims, methodological limitations, and implications for community water fluoridation.
- Relate to recent key studies supporting continued water fluoridation, including the Kumar et al. meta-analysis and Do et al. study, as well as Dr. Levy’s JAMA Pediatrics editorial critiquing its meta-analysis, and implications for community water fluoridation.
Speaker
Steven M. Levy, DDS, MPH- is the Wright-Bush-Shreves Endowed Professor of Research in the Department of Preventive and Community Dentistry at the University of Iowa College of Dentistry and also has an appointment in the Department of Epidemiology at the College of Public Health. He is a past-president of the American Board of Dental Public Health, is on the National Fluoride Advisory Committee of the American Dental Association, and has been a consultant to CDC, NIDCR, and other US and Canadian federal agencies. He has researched numerous aspects of and relationships among fluoride, dental caries, dental fluorosis, and bone development. He was long-term PI of the NIDCR-funded Iowa Fluoride Study and Iowa Bone Development Study and is Iowa Site-PI of the multi-site “Caries Risk Study” with overall PI Margherita Fontana. He is author of an editorial in JAMA Pediatrics 1/6/25 responding to the meta-analysis from NTP published in that issue on fluoride and IQ.
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