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A former BBC health correspondent said editors repeatedly prevented him from reporting on emerging scientific debates over the safety of water fluoridation, dismissing the story as “scaremongering.”
Michele Paduano spent three decades reporting for the BBC from the West Midlands, the first region in the U.K. to fluoridate its water supply, in 1964.
At a Fluoride Action Network (FAN) press conference on Tuesday, Paduano said he became interested in water fluoridation after reviewing the landmark 2024 decision by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
The court found that the U.S. fluoridation level of 0.7 milligrams per liter (mg/L) posed an “unreasonable risk” to children’s health. The West Midlands fluoridates its water at 1 mg/L, about 30% higher than the recommended U.S. level.
Paduano said professor Vyvyan Howard, a pathologist specializing in toxicology and a long-time collaborator, alerted him to several major cohort studies in top academic journals linking water fluoridation to lower IQ in children.
Paduano said mainstream media rebuttals were “so strong and absolute” that he knew publishing a story on the findings would be difficult.
He said he pursued the story only after reading the September 2024 court decision, which cited new evidence pointing to potential neurodevelopmental risks at lower fluoride concentrations.
“At that point, it felt like my public duty to tell people in the West Midlands that there was potentially a problem,” he said.
BBC editors rejected story as ‘scaremongering’
Paduano said he pitched the fluoride story through the BBC’s planning process and arranged an interview with West Midlands anti-fluoridation campaigner Joy Warren. Senior online and television editors abruptly cancelled the interview.
“They told me the story was scaremongering,” he said. Internal BBC scientists and public-health staff insisted there was no credible new evidence. Paduano said he challenged the decision and urged editors to read the U.S. court judgment, but they instead accused him of bias.
“As a BBC journalist, impartiality is fundamental. But impartiality also means reporting new evidence when it emerges,” he said.
Paduano continued investigating the issue and spoke with professor John Fawell, a leading U.K. pro-fluoridation expert and adviser to the World Health Organization (WHO).
As a result of their conversation, Paduano said Fawell acknowledged that recent research should prompt the U.K. to consider lowering fluoridation levels to match U.S. and Canadian guidance. Fawell, who co-authored a book on fluoridation’s oral health benefits, urged U.K. officials to reexamine the country’s dosage and consider aligning it with the U.S.
“If somebody who is a leading pro-fluoride proponent adjusts their position, that is a story,” Paduano said. But he said BBC editors still refused to let him cover it.
Paduano said he then emailed CEO of BBC News and Current Affairs Deborah Turness and BBC Director-General Tim Davie, but the response was “radio silence.” He then took his concerns to Nicholas Serota, a BBC board member responsible for editorial standards.
In the meantime, Paduano said he learned of planned BBC coverage in the North East about proposed fluoridation expansion, and he told Serota that failing to mention the U.S. court decision would constitute “significant censorship.”
Paduano said the article on the North East fluoridation expansion that eventually appeared briefly mentioned the U.S. judgment. He continued arguing that the West Midlands — which has fluoridated its water for decades — should also have reported on the new developments.
The editorial board refused to cover the story. “Concern was that we would be scaremongering, we would frighten people and that the science wasn’t there,” Paduano said.
Paduano said frustrations over fluoride reporting, along with broader concerns about the broadcaster’s impartiality and its close relationship with government, ultimately pushed him to leave the BBC.
Soon after, the BBC published an article about a recommendation by Worcestershire public health officials to expand fluoridation countywide. In what Paduano described as “the ultimate bias,” the article didn’t refer to the U.S. judgment or related research.
After leaving the BBC, Paduano contacted The Independent, which published his story on Fawell’s changing position on water fluoridation.
Paduano said he again approached the BBC, arguing that national coverage proved the issue’s newsworthiness, but editors held their ground and directed him to the complaints process — which he says has resulted in little progress.
‘We should avoid worrying our audiences unduly,’ BBC says
The BBC has not responded publicly to Paduano’s allegations, and it did not respond to The Defender’s request for comment.
The organization did reply to complaint letters from Howard and FAN’s science adviser Paul Connett, Ph.D., author of “The Case Against Fluoride: How Hazardous Waste Ended Up in Our Drinking Water and the Bad Science and Powerful Politics That Keep It There.” The letters urged the BBC to show “objectivity and professionalism on the latest research into the risks of water fluoridation” and to investigate Paduano’s claims.
In its initial response, the BBC complaints team said it had “provided a fair and appropriate view” of the water fluoridation issue.
In a follow-up response to Connett and Howard, the BBC defended its decision not to mention recent science linking fluoride exposure to neurodevelopmental issues in children.
The BBC said its reporting reflects “the majority view — from the World Health Organisation, US Centre for Disease Control, the American Dental Society [sic] and others,” and argued that it maintains a “higher bar for publishing stories around health risk.”
The BBC cited its editorial guidelines:
“The reporting of risk can have an impact on the public’s perception of that risk, particularly with health or crime stories. We should avoid worrying our audiences unduly and contextualise our reports to be clear about the likelihood of the risk occurring. This is particularly true in reporting health stories that may cause individuals to alter their behaviour in ways that could be harmful.”
Kevin Silverton, who signed the letter, said the complaints team could not continue corresponding and that further concerns should be taken to the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit.
BBC reporting on fluoride ‘can’t be trusted’
Connett told The Defender he was “shocked” when the BBC justified its position by citing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the American Dental Association (ADA) and the WHO as representing the majority expert view. He said:
“As you well know, the CDC oral health division’s mission was to promote fluoridation, and the ADA has avidly promoted it for years — so much so that any study that found any harm was immediately dismissed as being bad science, and the WHO has not looked at fluoride’s neurotoxicity for many years, if ever. It is incredible to me that this very large government-funded body should rely on such one-sided, essentially partisan.”
Connett said the public and local officials rely on the BBC for accurate information, but on fluoride, “it can’t be trusted.” He said:
“When a major media entity gets involved, you would hope that they would do their homework and review the science when it is available for them. In this case the issue should have been easy because it did not entail slogging through all the studies themselves. They had a major review by a government entity, the National Toxicology Program, and they also had the judgment of a judge in a seven-year lawsuit.
“In short, the BBC is abusing the public’s trust on this important health issue, and that is shocking. Scientists like myself have an obligation to speak out. In our case, we were lucky to have a journalist to give us an inside view of the censorship that went on. We are often not that lucky.”
Related articles in The Defender
BBC Editors Blocked Story on Latest Fluoride Science Over ‘Scaremongering’ Concerns, Former BBC Reporter Michele Paduano Says
