Neither Florida nor Texas: this is a map of states where most people drink fluoridated water in the US
Since 1945, communities around the US have put fluoride in the drinking water to improve dental health among the population but it’s become controversial.
Grand Rapids, Michigan became the first city to implement water fluoridation on January 25, 1945. The move came after studies of people in communities where there were higher levels of naturally occurring fluoride in the water, nearly all water has fluoride in it, had less tooth decay. However, the high concentrations of fluoride turned their teeth brown, a condition that was originally called dental mottling.
Research though led to the conclusion that adding just enough fluoride to water that was low in the mineral could help improve dental health among the public. The results from controlled trials, which Grand Rapids was a part of, showed clearly four years later that it worked. Dental examiners reported a significantly lower number of cavities among children that had access to fluoridated water since birth.
Nowadays, over 72% of the US population gets fluoridated water through public water systems according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The early fluoridation of community water systems is credited with lowering the rates of tooth decay by around 60%.
Today the percentage has dropped to around 25% but that is in part because Americans have greater access to toothpaste containing fluoride. Water fluoridation is considered one of the greatest public health achievements of the last century.
Neither Florida nor Texas: these are the map of states where most people drink fluoridated water in the US
The CDC keeps track of the level of water fluoridation across the nation. According to its most recent data published this year from 2020, the entire population of Washington DC gets water with added fluoride from the tap. Below are the states with the highest percentage of the population that get their water from a fluoridated community water system (CWS).
| Kentucky | 99.7% |
|---|---|
| Minnesota | 98.9% |
| Illinois | 98.2% |
| North Dakota | 96.5% |
| Virginia | 95.6% |
These are the states will the lowest percentage of the population which get tap water with fluoride:
| Hawaii | 8.5% |
|---|---|
| New Jersey | 16.2% |
| Oregon | 26.4% |
| Idaho | 31% |
| Montana | 32.8% |
You can check out the water fluoridation in your community on the CDC’s ‘My Water’s Fluoride’ website.
Controversy over water fluoridation
Despite the benefit to dental health water fluoridation has brought there has been a backlash against adding fluoride to drinking water in part because of its ubiquity. There are concerns that it can cause a number of adverse conditions.
Matthew Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University told Stat News that it’s “kind of a perfect conspiracy theory. Fluoride is invisible. It’s in the drinking water. The government has forced it down your throat, literally and figuratively.” However, there is no conclusive scientific evidence that fluoride causes any of the adverse effects that people claim.
This is nothing new, but it has been growing more vocal in recent years, especially in recent months with the possibility that Robert F Kennedy Jr could be put in charge of US public health. Before he was named as Trump’s pick to be Health and Human Services Secretary he said that he would recommend all US water system remove fluoride from public water.
Hundreds of communities from coast to coast have stopped adding fluoride or voted to prevent it being added. However, others that decided to stop with fluoridating their water reversed course like Calgary, Canada. Ten years after it ceased fluoridation in 2011 it started again after there was an uptick of children needing dental surgery.
Technically, there is the potential for fluoride toxicity, but a person would die first of water intoxication from consuming the amount of fluoridated water in order to ingest the amount of fluoride that could become harmful or deadly.
That doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be more research into the matter says John Fawell, a professor at Cranfield University. However, he thinks the current fraught politic environment may make it difficult.
“It wouldn’t go amiss to have a closer look again. [But] I think that that may not be possible in a sensible way when you’ve got a senior member of the new government making statements like [RFK Jr.] has,” he told Stat News.
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