‘Magic Bullet’: Sugar Industry Falsified Science to Sell America on Fluoride

The sugar industry has manipulated scientific research on fluoride since the 1930s — exaggerating its benefits, suppressing concerns about serious side effects and shifting attention away from sugar’s role in tooth decay, according to a study published Monday in the journal Environmental Health.

Internal sugar industry and dental organization documents, analyzed by the study’s author Christopher Neurath, detail how the sugar industry helped shape the public health policies that, for decades, touted fluoride as a “magic bullet” against tooth decay.

The documents also show how the tobacco and chemical industries later adopted those tactics.

Neurath, research director for the American Environmental Health Studies Project, told The Defender that his research builds on work by Dr. Cristin Kearns. Kearns revealed how the sugar industry paid scientists to downplay links between sugar and heart disease and promote saturated fat as a risk factor.

The sugar industry — and the industrial food industry as a whole — “have played a huge role in manipulating not just the science, but the policy,” Neurath said of his findings. “I think this helps to show they are likely culprit No. 1 in the chronic disease epidemic.”

Controversy over water fluoridation exploded after plaintiffs won a landmark lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in September 2024. The ruling — now on appeal — compels the agency to set new rules for regulating fluoride in water because fluoride poses an “unreasonable risk” to children’s neurodevelopment.