Florida becomes second state to ban fluoride in public water

Florida has become the second state to officially ban fluoride in public water.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed SB 700, also known as the Florida Farm Bill, into law Thursday. The bill doesn’t specifically mention the word “fluoride,” but it effectively bans the chemical compound by preventing “the use of certain additives in a water system.” It will go into effect July 1.

“What this does with respect to putting fluoride in the water supply is it basically doesn’t allow that anymore in the state of Florida,” DeSantis said during a news briefing Tuesday afternoon before he signed the bill.

The governor also signed SB 56 into law on Tuesday, a bill brought forward by Sen. Ileana Garcia, R-FL., that criminalizes any form of weather modification, including cloud-seeding, which is used to bring rain to places that need it. Supporters of weather modification argue that it can hinder the impacts of global warming. Garcia fainted during the briefing on Tuesday while discussing the bill but quickly recovered and continued her remarks.

DeSantis called the fluoridation of water “forced medication,” saying that it violates “informed consent.” He also said the mineral has been proven to negatively impact pregnant women and children, inviting medical professionals, including Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, to talk about the mineral’s side effects.

A study published in 2019 suggested that IQ levels were slightly lower in kids whose mothers had higher measures of fluoride in their urine during pregnancy, but its research was far from conclusive.

The governor argued that there are other ways residents can get access to fluoride if they’d like, and stressed that the mineral shouldn’t be mandated by governments.

“There’s nothing preventing you in your house from adding fluoride to your water,” he said.

DeSantis, a Republican, signed the bill in Miami, where Mayor Daniella Levine Cava vetoed a fluoride ban that the county commission passed last month. NBC South Florida reported the commission voted 8-4 in favor of overriding Cava’s veto on Tuesday.

DeSantis mentioned the commission vote in his briefing Tuesday afternoon, saying that they “voted the right way.”

Cava, a Democrat, has openly criticized the plan to ban fluoride in the state.

“I am deeply disappointed by the Florida Legislature’s decision to pursue a statewide ban on water fluoridation, a decision that disregards the overwhelming consensus of dentists, doctors, and medical experts and will end a practice that has been in place for decades to protect our health,” she said in a statement issued last month.

Florida is following in the footsteps of Utah, where Gov. Spencer Cox, also a Republican, signed a bill in late March prohibiting any person or government entity from adding the mineral to the state’s water systems, making it the first state to do so. It will go into effect on Wednesday.

The anti-fluoridation movement has been gaining popularity, seemingly fueled by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has said drinking fluoridated water has no “systemic advantage.”

Major public health groups, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Dental Association, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, support adding fluoride to water, saying that drinking fluoridated water keeps teeth strong and reduces cavities. All studies have shown that it reduces tooth decay by 25%.

Legislation to ban fluoride has circulated in Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Wisconsin and North Carolina. Hawaii, which has never mandated water fluoridation, has the “highest prevalence of tooth decay in the United States” among its children, with only 11% of its residents served by fluoridated community water systems, according to a 2015 study of third graders throughout the state by the State Health Department.