Salt Lake City – Utah has become the first state to prohibit Fluoride in public drinking waterDespite widespread opposition of dentists and national health organizations.
Republican Government Spencer Cox signed legislation at the end of Thursday that strengthens cities and communities to decide whether they wanted to add the mineral to their water systems.
Fluoride strengthens the teeth and reduces cavities Replacement of minerals lost during normal wearAccording to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Legislers in Utah who insisted on a ban said fluoride in water was too expensive. Cox, who grew up and raised his own children in a community without fluoridated water, recently compared it with ‘medicinal’ by the government.
The prohibition comes weeks after the American health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has spoken in Scepsis about water fluoridation, was sworn.
More than 200 million people in the US, or almost two -thirds of the population, receive fluoridated water through water water. The addition of low levels of fluoride to drinking water has long been considered one of the greatest performance of public health of the last century.
But some cities throughout the country are from fluoride away from their water, and other municipalities are considering doing the same. A few months ago, a federal court ordered the American environmental protection agency to regulate fluoride in drinking water, because high levels could pose a risk for the intellectual development of children.
The president of the American Dental Association, Brett Kessler, has said that the quantities of fluoride added to drinking water are lower than levels as problematic.
The National Institutes of Health says that very high doses of fluoride that can cause disease are usually the result of rare accidents, such as the unintended swallowing of fluoride use by dentist offices or supplements that are wrongly given to children. The agency says that it is “virtually impossible” to get a toxic dose that can cause systemic health problems of fluoride that are added to water or toothpaste at standard levels.
Opponents warn that the prohibition will disproportionately influence residents with a low income who can rely on public drinking water with fluoride as their only source of preventive dental care. Families with low incomes may not be able to afford ordinary dental visits or the fluoride tablets that some people buy as a supplement in cities without fluoridation.
The sponsor of the legislation in Utah, Republican Rep. Stephanie Gricius, acknowledged that fluoride has benefits, but said it was a matter of “individual choice” not to have it in the water.
Of the 484 UTAH water systems that reported data in 2024, only 66 fluoridated their water, a corresponding press analysis shown. The largest city in the state, Salt Lake City was the largest.
Utah will be in the nation in 2022 44e for the percentage of residents who receive fluoridated water, according to the data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.