Utah bans fluoride in public drinking water, a first in the US

SS: Utah has become the first state to ban fluoride in public drinking water, pushing past opposition from dentists and national health organizations who warn the move will lead to medical problems that disproportionately affect low-income communities.

Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed legislation Thursday barring cities and communities from deciding whether to add the mineral to their water systems.

Florida, Ohio and South Carolina are considering similar measures, while in New Hampshire, North Dakota and Tennessee, lawmakers have rejected them. A bill in Kentucky to make fluoridation optional stalled in the state Senate.

The American Dental Association sharply criticized the Utah law, saying it showed “wanton disregard for the oral health and well-being of their constituents.”

Cavities are the most common chronic childhood disease, the ADA noted. Fluoride strengthens teeth and reduces cavities by replacing minerals lost during normal wear and tear, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“As a father and a dentist, it is disheartening to see that a proven, public health policy, which exists for the greater good of an entire community’s oral health, has been dismantled based on distorted pseudoscience,” the association’s president, Denver dentist Brett Kessler, said in a statement.

The ban, effective May 7, brings into the mainstream concerns over fluoridation that for decades were considered fringe opinions.

It comes weeks after water fluoridation skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in as U.S. health secretary. Kennedy said in November that the administration of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump would advise water systems nationwide to remove fluoride.

Cox, who grew up and raised his own children in a community without fluoridated water, compared it recently to being medicated by the government. Utah lawmakers also said the ban was a matter of personal health choice and that putting fluoride in water is too expensive.

Florida’s surgeon general last year recommended against community water fluoridation because of what he called its “neuropsychiatric risk.” That guidance came after a federal judge ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate fluoride in drinking water because high levels could pose a risk to the intellectual development of children.

Federal officials determined last year “with moderate confidence” that there was a link between higher levels of fluoride exposure and lower IQ in kids. But the National Toxicology Program based its conclusion on studies involving fluoride levels at about twice the recommended limit for drinking water. The amounts of fluoride that can be added to water based on federal guidelines are below levels considered problematic, Kessler said.

This isn’t the same r/conspiracy it used to be.

I don’t agree with Kennedy on anything. The day after the election he was interviewed by NPR and they talked about fluoride. Kennedy’s response was that we have fluoride in our toothpaste and we’re getting too much in our water.

And I was taken aback. We do have fluoride in our toothpaste. However, was he correct in his assertion that the levels in our water are too high?