(LifeSiteNews) — Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo has recommended that fluoride be removed from the water supply because of its association with neuropsychiatric disorders and lower IQ in children.
Ladapo issued Florida’s new guidance on Friday, about two months after a September U.S. District Court ruling that the current U.S. recommendation of 0.7 milligrams per liter water fluoridation “presents an unreasonable risk of injury to health.”
The surgeon general explained that the ruling was based on a report of the National Toxicology Program which reviewed studies of the harms associated with water fluoridation.
“As I started reading this report, and reading the studies that the report was based on, I was appalled, frankly,” said Ladapo during a Friday press conference on the subject, adding that he learned that evidence of fluoride’s neurotoxicity has “been in the literature for many years.”
Adding fluoride to water increases the risk of neuropsychiatric disease in children and reduces their IQ. We can strengthen teeth without consuming this neurotoxin.
The data are consistent, adding fluoride to our communities’ water must stop.
See my guidance here:… pic.twitter.com/KCQegirMfZ
— Joseph A. Ladapo, MD, PhD (@FLSurgeonGen) November 22, 2024
Ladapo pointed out in his guidance that many European countries, “including Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, and Sweden,” do not fluoridate their water supply.
He cited several studies showing that fluoride exposure is associated with child ADHD and suppressed executive functions, including inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility. Ladapo also shared that the “majority” of “72 epidemiological studies” show a link between “higher levels of fluoride consumption and reduced IQ in children.”
According to the doctor, fluoride is associated with about half a standard deviation drop in IQ “in areas with higher levels of fluoridation.”
Continued public water fluoridation is “public health malpractice,” Ladapo concluded.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who was recently appointed Secretary of the U.S. Department Health and Human Services (HHS) by President Donald Trump, announced earlier this month that “On January 20, the Trump White House will advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water.”
Kennedy noted fluoride is “associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease.”
While he told MSNBC the Trump administration would not ban fluoride outright, Kennedy pointed to the recent federal ruling calling on the FDA to more tightly regulate the compound, saying, “I think fluoride is on the way out.”
“I think the faster it goes out, the better,” he continued. “I’m not going to compel anybody to take it out, but I’m going to advise the water districts about their legal liability, their legal obligations to their service zones and to their constituents. I’m going to give them good information about the science, and I think that fluoride will disappear.”
The U.S. widely fluoridated its water supply as the result of a PR campaign led by Edward Bernays — author of the book Propaganda — who also convinced American women to take up smoking cigarettes.
“You can get practically any idea accepted if doctors are in favour,” explained the late Bernays. “The public is willing to accept it because a doctor is an authority to most people, regardless of how much he knows or doesn’t know.”
Bernays jump started his career by selling the First World War to Americans as the war that would “Make the World Safe for Democracy,” part of work that he himself called “psychological warfare,” with the goal that he described as the “engineering of consent.”