GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Experts are weighing in on the potential removal of fluoride in public drinking water.
On Nov. 2, before President-Elect Donald Trump voiced his choice for the next Secretary of Health and Human services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote on the platform “X”, formerly known as Twitter, that the Trump White House will advise the removal of fluoride.
In the post, he said quote “On January 20, the Trump White House will advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water. Fluoride is an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease. President @realDonaldTrump and First Lady @MELANIA TRUMP want to Make America Healthy Again.”
The fluoridation of water has been deemed as a safe way to help improve dental health for Americans across the country.
"This is considered to be one of the greatest public health success stories," said president of the American Association of Dental Editors and Journalists Chris Smiley.
Candice Smith, founder of Tours Around Michigan, says Grand Rapids was the first city in the world to add fluoride to water in 1945.
The case study involved collecting data from school age children over six years.
The city was chosen for multiple reasons. First, the city had another large enough city near it that would allow researchers to compare results of water with and without Fluoride.
That city was Muskegon.
Officials also chose Grand Rapids because of its usage of Lake Michigan, which naturally has very low levels of fluoride in it. Because of this, researchers were able to control how much fluoride was used in the study.
And the study wanted to focus on school age children, which Grand Rapids had a lot of at the time.
From that study, research showed a decline in tooth decay among school age children in Grand Rapids.
“Almost immediately, they started seeing changes in dental health where the kids were doing better with their dental health. They found a 60% drop in cavities in the city of Grand Rapids,” said Smith.
After the study, cities, states and countries followed behind and began adding fluoride to their public water systems.
With Kennedy’s announcement about the potential future of public water systems, experts have come out saying removing fluoride is a bad idea.
"We definitely should be keeping the fluoride in the water. And all studies say that,” said Smiley.
Smiley says experts have recognized there is scrutiny around some studies of fluoride in drinking water. That includes the National Toxicology Panel Report that looked at the impact of high levels of fluoride in other countries like Mexico and Iran. But he says even with this research and other studies, it's been proven smaller usage of fluoride helps improve dental health.
"All the existing evidence strongly support the safety and efficacy of community water fluoridation for cavity control that's currently used in the United States,” Said Smiley.
This year, the Center for Disease Control also released a statement regarding the fluoridation of water saying quote "evidence shows that water fluoridation prevents tooth decay by providing frequent and consistent contact with low levels of fluoride, ultimately reducing tooth decay by about 25% in children and adults."
While only time will tell what will happen to the future of our drinking water, Smith says it's important to consider the historical impact of fluoride in drinking water.
"There's a lot of conflicting information out there, this is the health of people, so we want to make sure that we do what's right for our children, for the health of the general public, and the impacts that that will have down the road,” said Smith.
