Opinion: Tooth be told — should fluoridated water be a thing of the past?
The practice of adding small amounts of fluoride to community water sources started in the U.S. in 1945 and — according to the CDC — since then has been a 'cornerstone strategy for preventing cavities.'
The CDC estimates that fluoridated water reduces the cavity burden by up to 25%, thus being a cost-effective way to improve oral health regardless of socioeconomic status. Oral health has changed substantially since the 1940s with the increased availability of dental care and fluoridated dental hygiene products, like toothpaste. However, these resources are not always available to people of low socioeconomic status, and adding fluoride to water can make a significant difference in their oral health.
The benefits of fluoridated drinking water are well known, but there are concerns about potentially harmful effects. The U.S. Public Health Service and World Health Organization (WHO) recommend 0.7 mg/L and 1.5 mg/L, respectively, as the safe limit for fluoride in drinking water. The WHO does state that fluoride levels above 1.5 mg in community water increases risk of dental and skeletal fluorosis — mottling/discoloration of teeth and bone deformities, respectively. The WHO has stated that they have encountered no new evidence since they reviewed their guidelines in 1993 to suggest they need to revisit this guideline number.
In 2016, the National Toxicology Program (NTP) conducted a meta-analysis of studies across the world looking at the association of neurocognitive development and fluoride and 'concluded, with moderate confidence, that higher levels of fluoride exposure, such as drinking water containing more than 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per liter, are associated with lower IQ in children.'
It is important to note that this study looked at overall fluoride levels in individuals as opposed to drinking water. The overall levels of fluoride in the body have more to do with environmental exposure. Therefore, communities should be able to appropriately add fluoride to community water to improve public oral health.
While this has been an ongoing public debate, it has made headlines recently with the start of the Trump administration as the new U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is an outspoken anti-fluoridation advocate. Utah became the first state to ban fluoridation of drinking water on March 27, 2025, although anti-fluoridation bills have been submitted in North Dakota, Tennessee and Montana. Utah Governor Spencer Cox has not publicly stated his view on the health concerns surrounding water fluoridation but instead states that there has not been 'drastically different outcomes' in Utah between those who drink fluoridated water and those who do not.
The individuals who stand to lose the most from unfluoridated water are those who cannot afford dental checkups or fluoridated dental products. In 2011, Calgary City, Canada, took fluoride out of their drinking water and saw negative effects in real time.
City Councilman Gian-Carlo Carra spoke about his experience both removing and reinstating the fluoridation and admitted to not really knowing what fluoridation did for public health, only that his voters wanted it removed from the water. He went on to say, 'What we know (now) is that the rate of dental (cavities) has increased significantly more than … before (fluoride was removed).'
Carra stated the removal was to save on the city budget, but it has been a complex process to get this system reinstated. They initially started the movement to refluoridate water in 2021 but are still working on getting it included in the city budget in 2025.
Calgary is a clear example of what happens when community water is defluoridated. Acting without fully understanding the impact of the removal, the city of Calgary has realized the consequences of their actions and are spending more money to get it back.
This could become a public health crisis in the U.S. for the exact same reasons. Fluoridation of water has come under fire primarily for concerns about its effect on child neurocognitive development, with concerns being largely founded on studies examining overall fluoride levels in a patient accumulating from their overall environmental exposure. Utah was the first state to ban the fluoridation of water, but it is imperative that we stop this movement as soon as possible to avoid the well-known adverse health outcomes.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
29 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Protect LIGO's science and local impact from Trump's budget cuts
The Trump administration wants to slash funding for America's two Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatories (LIGOs) as part of broader cuts to the National Science Foundation. That would be a devastating blow to the nation's global leadership in scientific research. When Congress writes its fiscal 2026 budget, it should ignore the president's anti-science request. One of the LIGO sites is on the Hanford nuclear site. The other is in Louisiana. The White House proposes cutting 40% of their funding – $48 million to $29 million. And it also dictates how that cut should be made. It wants one of the two sites shut down. Given that Washington is a blue state that is participating in multiple lawsuits against the Trump administration and Louisiana is a red state that voted for the president, the odds of LIGO Hanford surviving seem low. Either way, scientists' ability to explore the universe by detecting gravitational waves would suffer significantly. Shutting one site down would compromise scientists' ability to verify detections of cosmic events and weed out false readings originating from local disturbances. It also would prevent the two sites from triangulating where an event occurred in the sky, allowing telescopes that rely on light for observations to also find and research them. The two LIGOs work in tandem. In 2015, the Hanford observatory and its sibling in Louisiana detected gravitational waves for the first time when they measured the ripple in space-time caused by two black holes merging 1.4 billion light-years away. The findings provided fresh confirmation of Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity and earned researchers a Nobel Prize in physics. Since then, LIGO has detected hundreds of events, including black holes merging and neutron stars colliding. The Hanford site continues to refine its tools and push science forward. An upgrade a couple of years ago installed quantum squeezing technology that allows scientists to detect 60% more events and probe a larger volume of space. If funded, the observatories will continue to help humanity answer profound questions about the universe. Projects like LIGO are expensive. The National Science Foundation has spent more than $1 billion on detecting gravitational waves over four decades. At the start, skeptics deemed it risky, but it has provided tremendous return on investment. It epitomizes the sort of Big Science research that few institutions other than governments can afford. Think Europe's Large Hadron Collider, the Manhattan Project and the international Human Genome Project. Undercutting LIGO as it reaches its full potential and produces its most impressive results just to save a few million dollars would be a colossal mistake. As one commenter on the Tri-City Herald's website put it, 'It would be like inventing the microscope, seeing a cell for the first time, and then discarding it.' The best is yet to come. Even if a future administration were to restore funding, rehiring skilled researchers would be a monumental hurdle. A temporary shutdown will delay scientific progress and result in America losing ground to international researchers. LIGO has a local impact, too, and not just that it is visible from outer space. Its presence helps the Tri-Cities and the Hanford nuclear site evolve their scientific narrative from Cold War-era nuclear development to 21st-century astrophysics. It is a symbol of progress, diversification and positive global contribution that is invaluable for regional identity and attracting future talent and investment. LIGO staff go the extra mile by working with local STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) students. They speak in classrooms about science careers and explain the complex workings of the observatory in a way that young people can understand. An $8 million LIGO Exploration Center, which opened in 2022 and was funded by Washington state, further enhances that public-facing mission. Such direct engagement cultivates future STEM talent and inspires the next generation of scientists and engineers. The proposed cuts to LIGO would lead to an irreversible loss of U.S. leadership in gravitational wave astronomy and an immense loss to the Tri-Cities. The Trump administration must reconsider. If it does not, Washington's congressional delegation must convince their colleagues to preserve this cornerstone of American scientific preeminence.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Opinion - Trump's palace coup leaves NASA in limbo
When President-elect Donald Trump nominated Jared Isaacman to become NASA administrator, it seemed like a brilliant choice. Business entrepreneur, private astronaut, Isaacman was just the man to revamp NASA and make it into a catalyst for taking humanity to the moon, Mars and beyond. Isaacman sailed through the confirmation process in the Senate Commerce Committee, chaired by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), by a vote of 19 to 9. He was poised to be confirmed by the full Senate when something so bizarre happened that it beggars the imagination. The White House suddenly and with no clear reason why, pulled Isaacman's nomination. After months of a confirmation process, NASA was back to square one for getting a new leader. Ars Technica's Eric Berger offered an explanation as to why. 'One mark against Isaacman is that he had recently donated money to Democrats,' he wrote. 'He also indicated opposition to some of the White House's proposed cuts to NASA's science budget.' But these facts were well known even before Trump nominated Isaacman. Trump himself, before he ran for president as a Republican, donated to Democrats and was close friends with Bill and Hillary Clinton. Berger goes on to say that a source told the publication that, 'with Musk's exit, his opponents within the administration sought to punish him by killing Isaacman's nomination.' The idea that Isaacman's nomination is being deep-sixed because of Musk runs contrary to the public praise that the president has given the billionaire rocket and electric car entrepreneur. Trump was uncharacteristically terse in his own social media post. 'After a thorough review of prior associations, I am hereby withdrawing the nomination of Jared Isaacman to head NASA,' he wrote. 'I will soon announce a new nominee who will be mission aligned, and put America First in Space. Thank you for your attention to this matter!' CNN reports that Isaacman's ouster was the result of a palace coup, noting that a source said, 'Musk's exit left room for a faction of people in Trump's inner circle, particularly Sergio Gor, the longtime Trump supporter and director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, to advocate for installing a different nominee.' The motive seems to be discontent about the outsized influence that Musk has had on the White House and a desire to take him down a peg or two. Isaacman was profoundly gracious, stating in part, 'I am incredibly grateful to President Trump @POTUS, the Senate and all those who supported me throughout this journey. The past six months have been enlightening and, honestly, a bit thrilling. I have gained a much deeper appreciation for the complexities of government and the weight our political leaders carry.' The idea that a man like Isaacman, well respected by the aerospace community, who was predicted to sail through a confirmation vote in the full Senate, could be taken down by an obscure bureaucrat in White House intrigue, motivated by petty spite, is mind boggling. Even Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), who has not been fond of Trump's space policy, was appalled. He posted on his X account that Isaacman 'ran into the kind of politics that is damaging our country.' 'Republicans and Democrats supported him as the right guy at the right time for the top job at NASA, but it wasn't enough.' NASA is in for months more of turmoil and uncertainty as the nomination process gets reset and starts grinding its way through the Senate. The draconian, truncated budget proposal is certainly not helpful, either. Congress, which had been supportive of Trump's space policy, is not likely to be pleased by the president's high-handed shivving of his own nominee. Whoever Trump chooses to replace Isaacman as NASA administrator nominee, no matter how qualified, should face some very direct questioning. Trump's NASA budget proposal should be dead on arrival, which, considering the cuts in science and technology, is not necessarily a bad thing. China must be looking at the spectacle of NASA being mired in political wrangling, a leadership vacuum and budget uncertainty with glee. Beijing has its own space ambitions, with a planned crewed lunar landing by 2030. It's possible that the Chinese will steal a march on NASA, with all the damage that will do to America's standing in the world. It didn't have to be this way. Isaacman could be settling in as NASA administrator, deploying his business acumen and vision to lead the space agency to its greatest achievements. Instead, America's space effort has received a self-inflicted blow from which it will be long in recovering, Mark R. Whittington, who writes frequently about space policy, has published a political study of space exploration entitled 'Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?' as well as 'The Moon, Mars and Beyond,' and, most recently, 'Why is America Going Back to the Moon?' He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Four ways NIOSH's Spokane Research Lab, now facing closure, has improved workers' safety
Jun. 7—Spokane is home to the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health's biggest facility in the western United States, where researchers have worked to prevent harm to workers in mining, commercial fishing, wildland firefighting and other dangerous jobs. Now, NIOSH's Spokane Research Laboratory is at risk of closure after the Trump administration notified nearly all its employees in March that their jobs would be eliminated by the beginning of July. Those terminations are on hold after courts in California ruled that President Donald Trump's mass firing of federal workers likely violated the Constitution, but the more than 80 employees in Spokane remain on paid administrative leave and their fate is unclear. Facing pressure from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who leads NIOSH's parent agency, has brought back about 300 of the 900 workers who were terminated — none of them in Spokane. The Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to questions from The Spokesman-Review about the rationale for the mass firing and any plans to reinstate more workers. Here are four examples of the research NIOSH employees in Spokane have conducted to improve safety for workers. 1. Protecting oil and gas workers from deadly fumes For years, federal regulations required workers in the oil and gas industry to open hatches on top of huge storage tanks to take samples of the oil inside. In 2013, a doctor at the University of California, San Francisco contacted NIOSH and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a regulatory agency, about the deaths of two of those workers. Working with the physician and OSHA, NIOSH researchers in Spokane used their database of fatalities in the oil and gas industry and found a total of nine similar deaths that occurred from 2010 to 2014. The deceased workers ranged in age from 20 to 63, and coroners attributed most of the deaths to heart disease, with no autopsy conducted in one case, but the NIOSH data showed a clear pattern. The truck drivers and other workers, who often worked alone, were found "collapsed over open hatch" or "slumped over on catwalk next to tank" — all while doing the same job task, "collecting sample" or "gauging." After NIOSH researchers identified the pattern of deaths, all likely due to workers opening a hatch and being engulfed in a plume of hydrocarbon gases and air that lacked oxygen, they worked with other federal agencies and the oil and gas industry to implement new regulations and safer methods of gauging the tanks' contents. 2. Detecting airborne silica to prevent lung disease in miners At hard-rock mines like Lucky Friday in the Silver Valley east of Coeur d'Alene miners can't get to valuable minerals without blasting, crushing and grinding a lot of crystalline silica, the most common mineral on earth. But when a miner breathes in silica dust, it damages the lungs and causes silicosis, an incurable disease that causes severe breathing problems and can lead to death. Currently, the standard method of measuring airborne silica involves sending a sample to a lab and waiting days or even weeks for a result, said Art Miller, a particle scientist who researched silica detection at the Spokane Research Lab until he retired in 2020. Miller and his colleagues at NIOSH facilities in Spokane and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, have worked for years to develop faster methods of detecting dangerous levels of silica dust. The researchers have developed a tool that produces same-day test results, but a project in Spokane to create a wearable, real-time silica monitor that would immediately alert workers to dangerous levels of dust is now in jeopardy. 3. Making commercial fishing vessels safer The NIOSH facility in Spokane houses the agency's research on maritime safety, covering waters from Alaska's Bering Sea to the Gulf of Mexico, which the Trump administration recently renamed as the Gulf of America. After a 15-year-old boy working on a shrimp boat in the Gulf died in 2012 when his clothing got caught in a winch, the Coast Guard asked NIOSH to look into the prevalence of such entanglements and find a solution. Researchers found 35 severe injuries, eight of them fatal, had occurred on shrimping vessels between 2000 and 2011 when workers got entangled in winches used to haul nets out of the water. NIOSH designed guards to fit several common winch models and made them available to shrimpers. The crab fishing season in the Bering Sea, made famous by the reality TV show "Deadliest Catch," has long been one of the world's most dangerous workplaces. From 1990 to 1999, an average of eight crab fishermen died each season. When NIOSH researchers analyzed the fatalities, they found that most were caused by boats capsizing because they were overladen with crab pots as they raced to maximize their catch in the brief season. Based on those findings, the Coast Guard began enforcing limits on crab pots, and fatalities in the still-dangerous industry fell to an average of one per year in the following 15 years. 4. Keeping miners safe deep underground The Lucky Friday Mine in Mullan, owned by Coeur d'Alene-based Hecla Mining, has the deepest mine shaft in the world at more than 9,500 feet underground. The mine shut down for more than a year and required more than $30 million in upgrades after a rock burst and other accidents killed two miners and injured seven others in 2011. NIOSH's Spokane Mining Research Division has worked with companies to improve safety at Lucky Friday and other hard-rock mines in the western United States for decades, developing techniques and technologies that have been applied by miners around the world. Brad Seymour, a NIOSH mining engineer and union steward in Spokane, started researching ground support methods to prevent deadly collapses in 1986, when the office was part of the now-defunct U.S. Bureau of Mines. Early in his career, he helped to improve cemented backfill techniques — filling underground voids with mill tailings and other material to prevent collapse — at the Cannon Mine in Wenatchee. Those improvements were adopted by other mines, he said, helping fuel a gold mining boom in Nevada in the 1990s and now improving safety and efficiency at North Idaho mines like Lucky Friday and the Galena Complex. Orion Donovan Smith's work is funded in part by members of the Spokane community via the Community Journalism and Civic Engagement Fund. This story can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information on this, please contact our newspaper's managing editor.
