Utah Is the First State to Ban Fluoride in Public Water

Utah is set to become the first state to ban fluoride in public drinking water. 

On Monday, Utah’s Republican Governor Spencer Cox stated that he would sign a bill banning the chemical in drinking water when it arrives at his desk. “It’s not a bill I felt strongly about; it’s not a bill I care that much about, but it’s a bill I will sign,” Cox told ABC4 Utah. The bill, according to the Wall Street Journal, is scheduled to take effect in May. 

The decision to ban fluoride in water comes just weeks after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in as the head of Health and Human Services. Kennedy has previously expressed skepticism regarding the benefits of fluoride in water. “We don’t need fluoride in our water,” he stated on NPR’s Morning Edition. “It’s a very bad way to deliver it into our systems.” As Food & Wine, in 2015, the U.S. Public Health Service recommended lowering fluoridation in water to 0.7 milligrams per liter nationwide.

But the regulation of water isn’t under the federal government’s jurisdiction; that responsibility falls to local municipalities. Still, Kennedy told NBC he’d be advocating for it to be removed. “I think fluoride is on its way out … I’m not going to compel anybody to take it out, but I’m going to advise the water districts. I’m going to give them good information about the science, and I think fluoride will disappear.”

It’s important to note, however, that there is plenty of evidence that low levels of fluoride in drinking water have prevented about 25% of tooth decay.

“We’ve got tried and true evidence of the safety and efficacy of this public health initiative,” Brad Kessler, the president of the American Dental Association of Denver, shared with the Associated Press. Kessler indicated that cavities are likely to begin appearing in children within just a few months after fluoride is removed from the water. However, Cox stated that half the state currently lacks fluorinated water, and they do not see a significant difference between communities that have it and those that do not. 

“You would think you would see drastically different outcomes with half the state not getting it. We haven’t seen that,” Cox additionally told ABC4. “So it’s got to be a really high bar for me if we’re going to require people to be medicated by their government.”

Still, local experts like Laura Briefer, the director of Salt Lake City’s Department of Public Utilities, say that removing fluoride from the water will hurt vulnerable populations. “I just think that we could have addressed this in a more measured and prudent way,” Briefer told the Wall Street Journal. “So that we don’t have unintended consequences to some of our most underresourced communities.”