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Adding to a growing global movement to acknowledge the serious health risks associated with fluoride exposure, as of August 26, 2014, the Ministry of Health in Israel lifted the mandatory requirement for water fluoridation that was put in place in 1970.

There is now a nationwide ban on water fluoridation in Israel, a decision Israeli Health Minister Yael German said “would allow Israeli parents and doctors to decide on their own whether to provide fluoride to children, in what doses, and in what manner.”1

While the debate over water fluoridation has many layers, the most fundamental is that adding fluoride to water is a medical treatment, and a forced one at that because this substance is difficult to remove from your water. As Professor Arnon Afek, director-general at the Health Ministry, told the
Jerusalem Post:2

“Individuals have the right to decide if they want it [fluoride] or not  We cannot force people  The ministry supported it for over 40 years, but this is a new era. The world has changed, and we can educate parents.”

This new era has ushered in many similar decisions from countries and communities around the globe seeking to protect their citizens from this avoidable neurotoxic poison.

Since 2010, over 150 communities have either stopped water fluoridation or rejected new proposals. Canada has dropped from about 60 percent of the population drinking fluoridated water down to about 32-33 percent.

Victories have also been logged in New Zealand, Queensland, Australia, and across the US. Dr. Paul Connett, director of one of our partner organizations the Fluoride Action Network (FAN), said:3

“We congratulate [Health Minister] Yael German for resisting the bullying tactics of fluoridation proponents  She has offered the international public health community the model to follow on the fluoridation issue… We would dearly like to see the same integrity from health officials in countries that continue this outdated, unethical, and reckless practice.”

Did You Know Fluoride Exposure Is Linked to Reduced Intelligence?

The debate over the dangers of fluoride has been ongoing for more than six decades, despite the fact that study after study has confirmed that fluoride is a dangerous, toxic poison that bio-accumulates in your body while being entirely ineffective at preventing dental decay.

In 2009, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) added fluoride to a list of “chemicals with substantial evidence of developmental neurotoxicity.”4

Recently, it was also added to a list of 11 known industrial chemicals that harm brain development in human fetuses and infants,5 compiled by researchers from Harvard School of Public Health and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. So what exactly does fluoride do to your brain?