{"id":292465,"date":"2025-04-28T15:55:10","date_gmt":"2025-04-28T15:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/28\/two-cities-stopped-adding-fluoride-to-water-science-reveals-what-happened\/"},"modified":"2025-04-28T15:55:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-28T15:55:10","slug":"two-cities-stopped-adding-fluoride-to-water-science-reveals-what-happened","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/28\/two-cities-stopped-adding-fluoride-to-water-science-reveals-what-happened\/","title":{"rendered":"Two cities stopped adding fluoride to water. Science reveals what happened"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.sciencenews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/042425_av_flouride-removal_feat.png?fit=800%2C450&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Two cities stopped adding fluoride to water. Science reveals what happened\" title=\"Two cities stopped adding fluoride to water. Science reveals what happened\" \/><\/div> \r\n<br><br><div data-component=\"video-embed\">\n\t\t\t\t\n\n\n\n\n<p>Warren Loeppky has been a pediatric dentist in the Canadian city of Calgary for 20 years. Over the last decade, he says, tooth decay in children he\u2019s seen has become more common, more aggressive and more severe. Many of his young patients have so much damage that he has to work with them under general anesthesia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s always sad seeing a young child in pain,\u201d Loeppky says. \u201cDental decay is very preventable. It breaks your heart to see these young kids that aren\u2019t able to eat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n<aside class=\"sn-conversion rich-text rich-text--with-sidebar\">\n<style><![CDATA[\n.email-conversion {\n  border: 1px solid #ffcccb;\n  color: white;\n  margin-top: 50px;\n  background-image: url(\"\/wp-content\/themes\/sciencenews\/client\/src\/images\/cta-module@2x.jpg\");\n  padding: 20px;\n  clear: both;\n}\n\n]]><\/style>\n\n\n\n<style class=\"is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\"><![CDATA[#newsletter-helper svg {\n    width: auto;\n    fill: #f1563e;\n}\n\n#newsletter-helper {\n    display: flex;\n    border-top: 1px solid gray;\n    padding-top: 10px;\n    padding-left: 20px;\n    margin-bottom: 10px;\n    max-width: 900px; \n    margin: auto\n}\n\n.zephr-form-container {\n    border-bottom: 1px solid gray;\n    margin: 0px !important;\n}\n]]><\/style><div id=\"newsletter-helper\">\n  <svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" enable-background=\"new 0 0 122.88 78.607\" height=\"25\" viewbox=\"0 0 122.88 78.607\" width=\"30\"><path clip-rule=\"evenodd\" d=\"m61.058 65.992 24.224-24.221 36.837 36.836h-48.446-25.23-48.443l36.836-36.836zm-59.657-65.992 59.656 59.654 59.657-59.654zm-1.401 69.673 31.625-31.628-31.625-31.625zm122.88 3.025-34.653-34.653 34.653-34.652z\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"\/><\/svg>\n  <h3 style=\"margin-left: 10px; margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px;\">Sign up for our newsletter<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 20px; margin: 0px; max-width: 900px; margin: auto\">We summarize the week&#8217;s scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.<\/p>                        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var(--zephr-input-borderColor);--zf-payment-options-borderRadius:calc(var(--zephr-input-borderRadius) * 1px);--zf-payment-options-highlighted-color:var(--zephr-color-text-main);--zf-payment-options-highlighted-bgColor:var(--zephr-color-accent-main);--zf-payment-summary-fontSize:var(--zf-subtext-fontSize);--zf-payment-summary-color:var(--zephr-color-text-main);--zf-payment-summary-bgColor:var(--zf-input-bgColor);--zf-payment-summary-border:calc(var(--zephr-input-borderWidth) * 1px) solid var(--zephr-input-borderColor);--zf-payment-summary-borderRadius:calc(var(--zephr-input-borderRadius) * 1px);--zf-list-subscriptions-container-maxWidth:630px;--zf-list-subscriptions-container-padding:24px;--zf-list-subscriptions-section-padding:16px 0px;--zf-list-subscriptions-container-border:calc(var(--zephr-input-borderWidth) * 1px) solid var(--zephr-input-borderColor);--zf-list-subscriptions-container-borderRadius:calc(var(--zephr-input-borderRadius) * 1px);--zf-list-subscriptions-info-fontSize:var(--zf-info-fontSize)}.zephr-form.svelte-jjl1p8{color:var(--zf-container-color);margin:var(--zf-container-margin);font-size:var(--zf-root-fontSize);font-family:var(--zf-root-fontFamily)}.zephr-form *{box-sizing:border-box}:where(.zephr-form) button{text-transform:unset;overflow:visible;font-family:var(--zf-root-fontFamily, unset);font-size:var(--zf-root-fontSize, unset);line-height:unset;margin:unset;padding:unset;border:unset;background:unset;&:hover, &:focus-visible {\n            border: unset;\n            background: unset;\n        }}.zephr-form-disabled-div{pointer-events:none;opacity:0.8}.zephr-form-relative-container{position:relative}.zephr-form-flex-container{display:flex}.zephr-form-input-inner-button{cursor:pointer;position:absolute;top:50%;transform:translateY(-50%);right:5px;padding:10px 5px}.zephr-form-input-inner-text{color:var(--zephr-color-text-main);font-size:var(--zf-subtext-fontSize);font-weight:bold;font-family:var(--zf-root-fontFamily)}\n]]><\/style>\n                        \n                        <style><![CDATA[.zephr-form-content {\n    display: flex;\n    flex-wrap: wrap;\n}\n\n.zephr-form-relative-container {\n    flex: 40%\n}\n\n.zephr-form-input {\n    border-radius: 0px !important;\n}\n\n.zephr-form-button {\n    width: 130px !important;\n    margin-top: 0px !important;\n    background-color: #2b3136 !important;\n    text-transform: none !important;\n    font-weight: 900 !important;\n    letter-spacing: 0.075em;\n    font-size: 1.2em !important;\n    border-radius: 0px !important;\n}\n\n.zephr-form-custom-text {\n    width: 100% !important;\n    margin-top: 3px !important;\n}\n\nlabel {\n    display: none !important;\n}\n\n.zephr-form-container {\n    max-height: 130px;\n    max-width: 900px;\n    margin: auto !important;\n    margin-bottom: 20px !important;\n}\n\n.zephr-form {\n    margin: 0px !important;\n    overflow-clip-margin: content-box;\n    --zf-container-bgColor: none;\n    --zf-container-maxWidth: 900px;\n}\n\n.zephr-form h3 {\n    font-size: 1.2rem;\n    font-weight: bold;\n    color: #f1563e;\n    margin-top: 0px;\n}\n\n.zephr-form p {\n    text-align: center;\n    margin: 0px;\n    color: #2b3136;\n    font-size: 1rem;\n}]]><\/style>\n                        \n                        \n<\/aside>\n\n\n<p>Loeppky notes that many factors can contribute to tooth decay in children, including their diet and genetics. Still, he believes part of the problem is linked to a decision made in the halls of local government: In 2011, Calgary stopped adding fluoride to its drinking water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis decision of city councilors was surprising to the general public, but shocking and alarming to dentists, to pediatricians, to anesthesiologists and others in the health care field, who knew what it would mean,\u201d says Juliet Guichon, a legal and ethics scholar at the University of Calgary who formed a group that advocated for adding fluoride back to drinking water in the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Several studies have shown that fluoride is a safe and effective way to prevent tooth decay. It recruits other minerals, such as calcium and phosphate, to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencenews.org\/article\/rfk-vaccines-fluoride-autism-milk-covid\">strengthen tooth enamel<\/a> and fend off acid made by bacteria. Oral health can also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencenews.org\/article\/gum-disease-opens-body-host-infections\">affect a person\u2019s overall health<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that communities across the country add 0.7 milligrams of fluoride for every liter of water. It\u2019s up to state and local governments to decide if they want to follow that recommendation. In 2022, the CDC reported that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/fluoridation\/php\/statistics\/2022-water-fluoridation-statistics.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">63 percent of Americans received fluoridated water<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But that practice now is coming under new scrutiny. In March, Utah became the first state to ban fluoridation; many local governments across the country are also debating the issue. And on April 7, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told news reporters that he <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/fluoride-cdc-epa-6f4dbc64b5dc511f712a82cd2d252d76\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">planned to tell the CDC <\/a>to stop its recommendation<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/fluoride-cdc-epa-6f4dbc64b5dc511f712a82cd2d252d76\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Adding fluoride to water has been contested in the United States since the practice became widespread in the mid-20th century. Opponents have historically voiced health concerns, including about tooth staining and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cancer.gov\/about-cancer\/causes-prevention\/risk\/myths\/fluoridated-water-fact-sheet\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">disproven worries that fluoridated water could cause bone cancer<\/a>, as well as claims that fluoridation amounts to mass medication and violates individual freedoms. More recently, people have pointed to research showing an association between fluoride and lowered IQ in children. But those findings, which have been heavily criticized, looked at fluoride concentrations much higher than those found in most Americans\u2019 drinking water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What happened in Calgary, as well as in Juneau, Alaska, which stopped water fluoridation in 2007, may be a cautionary tale for other municipalities. <em>Science News<\/em> spoke with researchers and other experts in both cities to understand what can happen when local governments opt to stop adding fluoride to drinking water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Looking into the mouths of second-graders in Calgary<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Lindsay McLaren says she never anticipated becoming a self-described fluoridation researcher. As a quantitative social scientist at the University of Calgary, she studies how public policies can affect the health of a population. She hadn\u2019t given much thought to fluoridation until 2011, when the Calgary City Council decided to remove fluoride from the city\u2019s water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The move prompted McLaren to design a study looking at how the dental health of the city\u2019s children fared once fluoride was removed. She recruited dental hygienists to go to schools and inspect the mouths of second-grade students. Some went to schools in Calgary and others went to schools in Edmonton, a similar city in the same province that still fluoridated its water.<\/p>\n\n\n<aside class=\"sn-conversion rich-text rich-text--with-sidebar\">\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-elements-27c40654034fbeecef6418d6adfe0794\" style=\"color:gray; margin-bottom:0px; font-size:.9rem;\">Sponsor Message<\/p>\n<!-- Tag ID: sciencenews-org_leaderboard_incontent -->\n\n<\/aside>\n\n\n<p>In Calgary, the team surveyed 2,649 second-graders around seven years after fluoridation ended, meaning they had likely never been exposed to fluoride in their drinking water. Of those, <a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1111\/cdoe.12685\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">65 percent had tooth decay<\/a>. In Edmonton, 55 percent of surveyed children had tooth decay. While those percentages may seem close, they mark a statistically significant difference that McLaren calls \u201cquite large\u201d on the population level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cCompared to Edmonton kids, Calgary kids were now considerably worse as far as dental health goes,\u201d McLaren says. Other factors, including diet and socioeconomic status, did not explain the differences between children in Edmonton and Calgary, she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2024, another study found a <a href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.17269\/s41997-024-00858-w#citeas\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">higher rate of tooth decay-related treatments<\/a> for which a child was placed under general anesthesia in Calgary than in Edmonton. From 2018 to 2019, 32 out of every 10,000 children in Calgary were put under general anesthesia to treat tooth decay, compared with 17 for every 10,000 children in Edmonton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The findings didn\u2019t surprise local dentists, says Bruce Yaholnitsky, a periodontist in Calgary. \u201cThis is just obvious to us. But you need to have proper science to prove, in some cases, the obvious.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Analyzing Medicaid claims in Juneau<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Years before Calgary\u2019s city council opted to remove fluoride from its water, members of the local government in Juneau made a similar decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jennifer Meyer says she first became interested in studying the effects of lack of fluoridation in Juneau after moving there in 2015. At the time, she had two young children; a third was born in Juneau. She was surprised at how\u00a0much dental work, including fillings, she noticed among\u00a0many other preschool and elementary school children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI thought \u2018Wow, what\u2019s going on here?\u2019 Because I could see a lot of the decay and the repairs,\u201d Meyer says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Juneau had stopped adding fluoride to its drinking water in 2007 after asking a six-member commission to review the evidence around fluoridation. A copy of the commission\u2019s report obtained from Meyer, a public health researcher at the University of Alaska Anchorage, shows that two commission members opposed to fluoridation made claims about the health effects that Meyer says are \u201cfalse\u201d and \u201cnot grounded in quality investigations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The commission\u2019s chair criticized anti-fluoride positions, at one point writing that part of the literature was based on \u201cjunk science.\u201d But he ultimately recommended that the city stop fluoridation, claiming that the evidence about its safety at low concentrations was inconclusive. With the commission\u2019s members split at 3\u20133, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ktoo.org\/2017\/02\/22\/are-more-teeth-decaying-since-fluoridation-in-juneau-ended-dentists-seem-to-think-so\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Juneau Assembly voted to end fluoridation.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Meyer and her colleagues analyzed Medicaid dental claims records made before and after the city stopped fluoridation. They found that the <a href=\"https:\/\/bmcoralhealth.biomedcentral.com\/articles\/10.1186\/s12903-018-0684-2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">average number of procedures to treat tooth decay rose<\/a> in children under age 6, from 1.5 treatments per child in 2003 to 2.5 treatments per child in 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The cost of these treatments in children under 6 years old, when adjusted for inflation, jumped by an average of $303 dollars per child from 2003 to 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Meyer says that increased Medicaid costs for dental treatments ultimately end up being paid by taxpayers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhen politicians decide to withhold a safe and effective public health intervention like fluoridation, they are imposing a hidden health care tax on everyone in their state or community,\u201d Meyer says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Continued calls to end fluoridation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Today, many opponents to fluoride in water cite a controversial systematic review released last year by the National Toxicology Program, which is nestled in HHS and evaluates the health effects of substances. That August 2024 review concluded with \u201cmoderate confidence\u201d that water with more than 1.5 mg of fluoride per liter <a href=\"https:\/\/ntp.niehs.nih.gov\/publications\/monographs\/mgraph08\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">was associated with lowered IQ in children<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But that dose is more than double the CDC\u2019s recommended amount. And the review authors couldn\u2019t determine if low fluoride concentrations like those found in treated drinking water in the United States had a negative effect on children\u2019s IQ. In addition, merely finding an association does not prove that higher levels of fluoride caused lowered IQ, the NTP <a href=\"https:\/\/ntp.niehs.nih.gov\/research\/assessments\/noncancer\/completed\/fluoride\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">notes on its website<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More broadly, Meyer says, \u201cending fluoridation \u2026 based on weak or misrepresented evidence is not a precaution, it\u2019s negligence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Juneau remains without fluoridated water. In Calgary, though, residents voted in 2021 to bring it back. With 62 percent of voters opting to reintroduce fluoride, the margin was higher than it was in the 1989 vote that brought fluoride to Calgary in the first place. Guichon says McLaren\u2019s study, combined with \u201cdetermined advocacy,\u201d helped bring the electorate to the polls. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cMore people voted to reinstate fluoride than voted for the mayor. So that\u2019s a success,\u201d Meyer says. \u201cBut in America, we are entering a dark time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n<br>\r\n<br><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencenews.org\/article\/fluoride-drinking-water-dental-health\">Source link <\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Warren Loeppky has been a pediatric dentist in the Canadian city of Calgary for 20 years. Over the last decade, he says, tooth decay in children he\u2019s seen has become more common, more aggressive and more severe. Many of his young patients have so much damage that he has to work with them under general [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292466,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.sciencenews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/042425_av_flouride-removal_feat.png?fit=800%2C450&ssl=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[606],"tags":[4830,9415,116959,2222,1185,252,8299,556],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292465"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292465"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":292467,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292465\/revisions\/292467"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}