City Votes to Remove Fluoride From Water Supply Amid RFK Jr. Announcement

The City Commission in Winter Haven, Florida, voted to remove fluoride from its drinking water.

Water from a tap fills a glass in San Anselmo, Calif., on July 6, 2023. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Another U.S. municipality this week has decided to remove fluoride from the water supply, after a federal judge ordered a federal agency to look into alleged health issues posed by the compound and ahead of the second Trump administration.

A federal judge in September ruled that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must take steps to address studies that have raised concerns about whether fluoride in drinking water leads to lower IQ in children. Meanwhile, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has suggested he would push to end water fluoridation.

Now, the city of Winter Haven, Florida, will be the next municipality to remove fluoride after its City Commission voted on Tuesday to approve the “authorizing the discontinuation of the fluoridation of the City water supply system,” according to a video of the meeting uploaded to YouTube.

Winter Haven Commissioner Brad Dantzler said that the judge’s ruling in September and Kennedy’s potential nomination are reasons that fluoride should likely be removed from the city’s drinking water. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen had found that some studies may support arguments that fluoride levels could pose an unreasonable risk to the public’s health and that the EPA must address those concerns.

Following Chen’s ruling, several other cities have moved to remove fluoride from their water supplies, including two municipalities in Westchester County, New York, and the Texas city of Abilene.

Dantzler noted in the meeting that fluoride “is good for your teeth,” but he cautioned that “we don’t know” what the compound does when it’s ingested.

The move came just two days before Trump named Kennedy to lead HHS, although he still needs to be confirmed by the Senate.

Kennedy has long opposed water fluoridation, and he wrote on social media platform X that he would push Trump into removing it from public drinking water sources.

“Fluoride is an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease,” Kennedy wrote on X.

The HHS is a sprawling federal agency that oversees the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and many other agencies.

Since 1945, U.S. municipalities have added fluoride to drinking water in a bid to combat tooth decay. The U.S. Public Health Service recommends that water systems have a fluoride level of 0.7 milligrams per liter.

Chen, the federal judge, wrote in September that while it isn’t certain that the amount of fluoride typically recommended in the United States can lower the IQ of children, recent research shows that the compound could pose a risk.

“If there is an insufficient margin, then the chemical poses a risk,” the judge wrote. “Simply put, the risk to health at exposure levels in United States drinking water is sufficiently high to trigger regulatory response by the EPA” under federal law.

Recent “scientific literature in the record provides a high level of certainty that a hazard is present” and that “fluoride is associated with reduced IQ,” he also wrote.

The American Dental Association and American Academy of Pediatrics, however, said they are questioning Chen’s ruling and what research he relied on, adding that “numerous factors impact IQ, and it is unclear whether IQ data from different studies are accurate, comparable, or generalizable.”

In late October, the EPA told The Epoch Times that the agency is still reviewing Chen’s decision.

An agency spokesperson said that while Chen did find a “risk sufficient to trigger regulation under the Toxic Substances Control Act,” his order did not conclusively rule that the compound is harmful to public health.

“As a part of our work to protect human health and the environment, EPA assesses safe levels of certain chemicals in drinking water and sets standards to protect,” the EPA said.