Ohio lawmakers debate whether to ban fluoride from public drinking water

Yahoo

05-04-2025

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Some Ohio Republicans want to ban fluoride in public drinking water, because they say it's a matter of personal choice.
'I think it's important for an individual to be able to choose what sort of supplements they're taking, what sort of medical care they're doing, things like that,' Representative Levi Dean (R-Xenia) said.
Dean, the freshman lawmaker, is behind House Bill 182. The legislation is short and to the point: 'No public water system shall add fluoride to the water supplied by the system.'
Right now, there is a certain fluoride level that public water must be at. Some plants need to dampen it, some need to hike it up. Dean says those systems should not have that say.
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'Your neighbor or the government shouldn't be able to tell you what you have to ingest into your body,' he said. 'If you want to apply fluoride, this bill still allows you to do that. It's just saying you can't force someone to swallow and ingest fluoride by putting it into the water stream.'
Dean said this bill came about after he heard from some local elected officials 'who were interested in removing fluoride from the water,' but were not allowed to under Ohio law. Then, he said he heard the same from his constituents.
'They didn't want to have fluoride,' he said. 'They wanted to have personal choice.'
What about the health benefits of fluoride? Dr. Matthew Messina, DDS and Associate Professor an The Ohio State College of Dentistry said in short, it helps stop tooth decay.
'Fluoride helps because it makes tooth enamel harder or stronger, more resistant to the acid, which reduces the risk of decay,' he said.
Messina said controlled amounts of fluoride in drinking water helps 'build strong teeth for a lifetime.'
He said one of the big benefits of having it in public water is that it reaches everyone.
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Dean argues, for the people who want it, it is in many toothpastes and mouth washes.
'I don't know why they wouldn't just brush their teeth with fluoride, which most of them probably already do,' Dean said. 'That's a better application in general.'
'We've been trying to tell people for generations to brush their teeth. But there's a sizable percentage of the people that still don't brush their teeth every day. So, this is a way that helps them get the benefits of fluoride in the water,' Messina said.
But he said he thinks back to when fluoride was taken out of public water in Calgary, Alberta, Canada back in 2011 and where they are now, nearly a decade and a half later.
'They have discovered an increase in the prevalence of [tooth] decay in the community,' he said. There are more cavities which leads to unfortunately more dentistry being done. And so, they're seeing the cost of dental care going up.'
Messina said fluoride in public water was 'hailed as one of the best and one of the most successful public health efforts in the 20th century,' and said going would mean that 'everybody would have to step up their game,' when it comes to oral hygiene.
'A huge achievement like that is something that we just don't ever want to risk going back from,' he said.
Dean said under this bill, those who wanted to add fluoride to water themselves would not be stopped and said he already has an idea for a tweak to the legislation too.
'We could in the bill have an amendment to say, 'hey, your leftover reserve can be distributed to individuals who want to come and pick it up and then add it to their own water stream and drink it if they'd like,'' Dean said.
'Fluoride was added to water because it produced a tremendous effect in reducing decay in some of our most vulnerable populations,' Messina said.
As far as leadership goes, Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima) said he does not know whether he thinks fluoride should stay in water.
'Lots of people have been talked about that over the last few years and they were dismissed. And now there appears to be some science that says too much fluoride, including adding fluoride, is bad for folks. So, I mean, I not a scientist, I'm not a chemist,' Huffman said. 'We're going to sort of litigate that question, not in the courtroom, in the legislature here, over the next couple of months. So, I don't know the answer to your question.'
On the other side of the aisle, Ohio House Minority Leader Allison Russo (D-Upper Arlington) said as someone who has a background in public health, she thinks the bill is 'misguided.'
'I see this as a basic human right in the United States of America,' she said. 'I think the expectation of every household in this country is that you have access to clean tap water in your household. And anything that threatens that, I'm going to be opposed to.'
The bill is assigned to the Ohio House Natural Resources Committee and awaits its first hearing.
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