Madison Area Lyme Support Group

The House That Sugar Built

In 1930, Will Keith Kellogg, the breakfast-cereal magnate, endowed a new philanthropic institution with a simple mission: to promote the health and happiness of children. Like many industrialists of his time, he believed that the wealth created by modern business should serve the public good. The W.K. Kellogg Foundation was born from that ideal, funded by stock in the company that still bears his name.

Nearly a century later, that relationship endures. The Foundation’s trust remains one of the largest shareholders in the Kellogg Company—now split into Kellanova (snacks) and WK Kellogg Co (cereals). The dividends from those shares sustain one of the world’s largest charitable foundations, supporting programs in early childhood, food security, and public health.

But the Foundation’s history reveals a deeper paradox—one that raises uncomfortable questions about how philanthropy, industry, and science can become entangled in shaping public health itself.

Sugar, Tooth Decay, and the Birth of Fluoridation

By the mid-20th century, Americans were consuming record amounts of refined sugar, much of it through breakfast cereals and convenience foods. Dental caries became one of the most common chronic diseases in children.

Rather than confronting the role of sugar, public-health officials and industry leaders rallied around a technological fix: fluoridation. Adding fluoride to drinking water, they claimed, would strengthen enamel and prevent cavities regardless of diet.

The idea was not born in dental science alone—it was also nurtured by industry influence. According to a 2025 analysis by Chris Neurath in Environmental Health, the sugar industry and its allies actively promoted fluoridation to deflect attention from the role of sugar in tooth decay. Among the most prominent actors in this alliance was the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, whose deep financial ties to the sugary cereal business gave it both motive and means to shape dental policy.

The Kellogg Connection

Neurath’s research reveals that in 1942, Emory Morris—a former dentist, Kellogg Company executive, and later president of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation—was appointed chair of the American Dental Association’s Committee on Dental Health Policy. Under his leadership, the ADA began to promote fluoride as a “magic bullet” against tooth decay while de-emphasizing the importance of reducing sugar consumption.

That same year, Morris’s committee even discussed the compulsory addition of fluoride to food.

Soon after, Harold Hillenbrand, editor of the Journal of the American Dental Association (JADA) and a fluoridation advocate, joined the Kellogg Foundation’s dental advisory committee, while Morris simultaneously chaired the ADA’s policy committee—a reciprocal relationship that aligned the Foundation and the ADA in promoting fluoridation.

According to University of Michigan dentist Philip Jay, who led the first human fluoridation trial in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the Kellogg Foundation provided the initial funding for that study in 1945. A decade later, the Foundation gave the ADA a $250,000 grant—worth roughly $2.8 million today—and continued to fund fluoridation programs for decades, including in Latin America as late as 2005.  (See link for article)

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**Comment**

The devastating role of sugar and fluoride on human health has been covered up for decades.

The Weston Price Foundation states:

“….fluoridation and the proclaimed benefit of fluoride as a way of preventing dental decay is perhaps the greatest “scientific” fraud ever perpetrated upon an unsuspecting public.”

It’s important to note that fluorides are cumulative toxins which means they accumulate in the body.

• In 1998 EPA scientists declared a 4ppm safety level; however, this level was set fraudulently by outside forces in a decision that omitted 90% of the data showing the mutagenic properties of fluoride.
• Since fluoride is now everywhere, it’s impossible to accurately measure total fluoride intake.

Regarding sugar, “That Sugar Film” documentary follows filmmaker Damon Gameau as went from consuming very little sugar to consuming the average amount of sugar eaten daily by Australians (160gm or 40 teaspoons).  He noted:

• wild mood swings
• weight gain of 7 lbs in 12 days
• 2.75 inches to his waistline in 1 month
• pre-type 2 diabetes
• heart disease
• 11 centimeters of visceral fat
• nonalcoholic fatty liver disease

For more:

• https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2025/01/31/new-study-confirms-fluorides-toxic-effects/
• https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2024/09/23/a-us-federal-agencys-definitive-report-on-how-fluoride-harms-childrens-brains-what-now/
• https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2024/09/26/epa-must-take-action-for-unreasonable-risk-to-children-from-fluoride/
• https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2024/08/23/cdc-stands-by-water-fluoridation-after-published-report-links-fluoride-to-lower-iqs-in-kids/
• https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2024/10/16/aap-ada-rush-to-support-fluoridation-despite-cochrane-review-and-the-fact-it-lowers-iq/
• https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/06/01/immunoexcitotoxicity-as-the-central-mechanism-of-etiopathology-treatment-of-autism-spectrum-disorders-a-possible-role-of-fluoride-aluminum/
• https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/05/21/fluoride-not-what-you-think/
• https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2024/02/22/update-on-fluoride-case/