Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida signed a bill into law on Thursday that bans the addition of fluoride to public water supplies, making Florida the second state to prohibit the widespread public health practice.
Studies show a clear correlation between fluoridated drinking water and improved oral health, including fewer dental cavities. Fluoride was added to a city’s water supply for the first time in 1945, and the practice spread around the country in the following decades.
But Mr. DeSantis and other prominent Republicans have criticized fluoridation as an example of government overreach, drawing parallels to masking and vaccine mandates during the coronavirus pandemic.
How It Fits Into the National Landscape
The law puts Mr. DeSantis and the Republicans who dominate the Florida Legislature at the front of a growing national movement. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s health secretary, recently called for all states to ban fluoride in drinking water. In March, Utah became the first state to outlaw the practice.
A handful of other states, including Ohio and Texas, and a number of local governments are weighing fluoride bans.
In 2022, the most recent year for which C.D.C. data is available, about 63 percent of Americans lived in areas with fluoridated drinking water.
The Argument In Favor of a Ban
Fluoride is naturally present in many foods, and experts say that excessive exposure to fluoride over a long period can lead to health problems. Federal safety guidelines for how much fluoride to add to water supplies have been lowered in recent years to reduce any risk, including after a recent court order.
With trust in public health eroding from the coronavirus pandemic, a movement to eliminate fluoride from drinking water has gained significant steam.
Opponents of fluoridation have cast their concerns as a matter of protecting bodily autonomy, and have cited the possibility of cognitive effects on children and infants from excessive exposure. Powerful people like Mr. Kennedy and other top Republicans have publicly questioned fluoridation’s safety.
“It’s forced medication, when they’re jamming fluoride into your water supply,” Mr. DeSantis said at a news conference last week, standing behind a placard that hailed “the free state of Florida.” Referring to the oral health benefits of fluoride, he said, “I’m not saying that’s not true, but we have other ways where people can get access to fluoride.”
“We should all agree that we want people to have informed consent when it comes to these things,” he added.
The Case Against the Ban
Dentists and a number of public health experts say that fluoridated water is safe and essential for protecting oral health in children. The mineral prevents cavities by making teeth stronger, and reducing tooth decay can in turn reduce the risk for chronic conditions linked to oral health, like heart disease, experts say.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called the benefits of fluoridation one of the “10 greatest public health achievements of the 20th century.”
Dentists have lobbied forcefully to continue fluoridating water in Florida and other states that have considered banning the practice.
“Most people in the U.S. today have never seen nor personally experienced the severity of tooth decay that exists without fluoride,” said a joint letter signed in April by dozens of national and state dental and medical agencies. “With an abrupt departure from water fluoridation, our nation would undoubtedly experience a rapidly rising incidence of decay.”
Background
In April, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava of Miami-Dade County, the largest county in Florida, vetoed a fluoride ban there. Weeks later, the commission voted 8 to 4 to override the mayor’s veto, reaching the required two-thirds majority.
Speaking about the state law last week, Ms. Levine Cava
said that “this is a very important local decision — taking care of the personal health, the public health — and it’s taken it out of the hands of our local community.”
What Comes Next
The statewide ban in Florida is scheduled to take effect on July 1.
At the national level, Lee Zeldin, the head of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, has indicated that his agency may once again change its recommendation for how much fluoride should be added to drinking water, after re-examining research on potential health risks.
Mr. Kennedy said recently that he planned to tell the C.D.C., which he oversees, to stop recommending fluoridation to communities.
Emily Cochrane is a national reporter for The Times covering the American South, based in Nashville.
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