Prof Paul Connett at NZ Parliament

Fluoride Action Network (FAN) are the preeminent group opposed to fluoridation in the world. FAN are our “parent” group.

Prof Paul Connett was the Director of FAN for many years and was instrumental in forming Fluoride Free New Zealand in 2003. At that time we called ourselves Fluoride Action Network NZ but changed to Fluoride Free so that people knew which side of the fence we are on. He is now retired from that position but still very much a major part of the effort to stop fluoridation.

Even though Prof Paul Connett lives in the U.S. he has probably done more to educate New Zealanders about fluoride, and help to stop the expansion of fluoridation, than any one else. 

Prof Connett has done at least nine speaking tours of New Zealand. Fluoride Free has organised eight of them since 2011. You can see details of many of the tours on our New Zealand Information page. 

One of those tours was in February 2018. During that tour a Labour MP, Duncan Webb, agreed to host Paul at parliament to give a presentation. We were all very excited with being invited to Parliament however, on the day, only three MPs turned up: Duncan Webb, another Labour MP Megan Woods and NZ First MP Clayton Mitchell.  Not too far into the presentation Duncan Webb and Megan Woods started looking at their phones and whispering to each other. It was obvious they did not want to hear what Paul was saying. Clayton Mitchell, on the other hand, took in the whole thing and became a champion to stop the “Mandatory Fluoridation” Bill from going through. NZ First were successful in keeping that Bill from progressing through parliament but they were voted out in 2020 and hence the Bill went through in 2021.

Prof Connett has also written many, many great articles on fluoridation. My favourite one for years was written in 1999 called a Statement of Concern. In 2014 he wrote Why Fluoridation Should be Ended in New Zealand. Paul has argued with Sean Plunkett and given testimony to the Select Committee in 2017 and many, many councils around the country. 

Fluoride Action Network have been responsible for bringing so much of the science into the public arena. They uncovered the Bassin study on osteosarcoma, and got the first fluoride-IQ studies translated from Chinese into English. This is what led to the current US Government funded studies looking at fluoride’s neurotoxicity.

And to top it all off Fluoride Action Network have sued the US Environmental Protection Agency for failing to undertake a risk assessment on fluoridation. The lead attorney for this historic case, is none other than Prof Connett’s son, Michael. This court case started in 2016 and a two week trial was completed this February. We now await the ruling from that. (More on the US court case another day.)

When Paul returned home in 2018, he did a video of the presentation he gave to our parliament.  I think everyone can agree that this is what our Director-General of Health, our Chief Science Advisor (and everyone in that office), every MP and every councillor in the country should be made to see. And this was 2018, when only one US Government funded study on neurotoxicity had been published. See the presentation below.