Efforts to remove fluoride from drinking water make steady progress amid mainstream headwinds

A growing movement to remove fluoride from public drinking water is gaining steam, fueled by modern research and safety concerns. 

Adding to the fire is a judge’s order last year that the Environmental Protection Agency must strengthen regulations on fluoride in drinking water – based on what he concluded was scientific evidence of related health risks – and mitigate what the court says is an "unreasonable risk" to children's IQ.

In January, Melbourne became among the first cities in Florida to stop fluoridating its water supply.

“You have a right to know what's in your water and what is necessary to be in your water. So that really should be your choice,” Mayor Paul Alfrey told Full Measure on our recent visit there.

Water fluoridation dates back to the 1940s. The chemicals are potent toxins from industry waste, like aluminum and phosphate fertilizer plants. Factories once released the waste into the air and water. When health concerns put that to a halt, the industry began selling the toxic waste as fluoride components to add to public water to fight cavities, effectively flipping a costly hazard into a $1.2 billion-a-year business.

“It's a hazardous material, and it's getting rid of it. I mean, now they have to figure out where to put it. They have to pay. So really it was the ability to get rid of it and dumping it in drinking water, and get paid to do so,” Alfrey says.

Melbourne’s action was followed by a statewide ban. In July, Florida became the second state after Utah to halt fluoridation. 

Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo says only after a deep dive into the research did he come to support banning fluoride.

“It is a poison, and folks don't know that. Most folks don't know that,” he tells Full Measure.

On the other side are staunch fluoride advocates, including dental associations. The American and Florida Dental Associations wouldn’t agree to an interview. The Florida Dental Association referred us to pediatric dentist Dr. Johnny Johnson, who told us he’s speaking only for himself and not any dental groups nor the American Fluoridation Society. 

Johnson argues that many fluoride studies show no connection to lower IQ, bone fractures, or other health risks. And the ones that do, used flawed methodologies. He’s particularly critical of a 2019 Canadian study that suggested a link between fluoride exposure in pregnant women and lower IQ in boys.

“The worst thing is they've never allowed their data to be evaluated by independent researchers. And a group in this country worked for two years trying to get that data and eventually the university that houses it said, ‘No, you're not getting it’.” Johnson says. 

He also warns of dire consequences if the anti-fluoride movement expands. 

“Dental cavities are the most common chronic disease of adults and children in the U.S. and around the world,” he says. “It is an infectious disease and one of the most common ways to stop it is through water fluoridation. And that's how we get it done.”

Dr. Ladapo says prevailing science disagrees.

“These concerns, they're completely bunk. It's totally bogus,” he says. 

“Fluoride in water is not the thing that's going to make the difference between good dental health in Florida and bad dental health in Florida ... . What is striking is that the vast majority [of scientific studies] line up on this side of fluoride potentially being harmful. And the additional piece of information is that not only do you have congruence across many, many studies in different countries, but there's also a presence of a dose response relationship. It is poor judgment to ignore that. People can do it, like the American Dental Association, they can do that. But it is poor judgment.”

Overall, this year 17 states introduced bills to ban fluoridation. Two passed (Utah and Florida),10 failed, and five are pending. Locally, in the past year, at least 62 communities stopped adding fluoride to water.

Meanwhile, the federal court ruling last year, in California, is forcing the issue at the federal level. A judge ordered the EPA to regulate added fluoride for the first time as a toxic substance, saying it poses an “unreasonable risk” to children’s IQ. The industry-friendly EPA under Biden, and now Trump, is appealing – apparently on a different page than the Trump administration’s Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In addition, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has called for the end of community water fluoridation. 

For more on this story, watch "Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson” Sunday. Attkisson's most recent bestseller is "Follow the $cience: How Big Pharma Misleads, Obscures, and Prevails.”