Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo is advising Miami-Dade County to stop the long-held practice of adding fluoride to municipal drinking water supply, despite widespread opposition from dentists and national health organizations.
Ladapo appeared before Miami Dade County’s committee on safety and health Tuesday, alongside University of Florida professor Ashley J. Malin— whose research focuses on the potential negative effects of fluoride— and two dentists to speak against fluoride in local water supplies.
“The debate here is whether fluoride should be added to your water, and it shouldn’t be,” Ladapo said. “This is not in the interest of children …of pregnant women…of our community.”
The group presented what they say is strong research evidence suggesting a dose-response relationship between fluoride and neurotoxic harm.
Ladapo and Malin cited a ruling from a federal judge last September that ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to further regulate fluoride in drinking water because high levels could pose intellectual developmental risks in children.
The ruling comes out of a National Toxicology Program systematic review that concluded that higher levels of fluoride exposure, such as drinking water with fluoride levels more than 1.5 milligrams per liter, are associated with lower IQ in children.
No action was taken over the fluoride issue at the meeting, but several of the county committee members cast doubt on the push from Ladapo and others to stop water fluoridation.
“My concerns are that you are presenting one side,” said District 2 County Commissioner Marleine Bastien. “Overwhelmingly, the research that my staff and I found….shows that low levels of fluoride in our water are not bad for our health.”
Miami-Dade County began adding fluoride to the local drinking supply in 1958, according to a county spokesperson. A natural amount of fluoride in municipal groundwater comes to about 0.2 parts per million, and the county’s Water and Sewer Department adjusts those natural levels to a current concentration maintained at 0.7 milligrams per liter of water, which aligns with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendations.
“Water and Sewer does keep a close eye on all of the research,” said District 7 County Commissioner Raquel Regalado. “Like my colleagues I just want everyone to have clarity on the quality of Miami-Dade County water.”
The discussion in Miami-Dade comes as at least half a dozen local water systems in Florida have stopped adding fluoride to drinking water, and a bill was filed in the Legislature to prohibit local governments from adding fluoride to drinking water statewide.
Fluoride is a compound naturally found in soil, water, plants and food, and prevents tooth decay, according to the National Institutes of Health. The CDC praises water fluoridation as one of the great public health interventions of the 20th century because of the decline in cavities since the practice began in the U.S. in 1945.
More than 200 million people in the U.S., or about 63% of the U.S. population, receive fluoridated water through community water systems.
But a national debate over the topic was sparked during the 2024 presidential campaign when now-Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promised that then Republican candidate Donald Trump would push to remove fluoride from drinking water if elected.
In turn that same month, the Florida Department of Health, led by Ladapo, released guidance for local municipalities to stop the practice of water fluoridation, citing research suggesting that high levels of fluoride are associated with reduced IQ and increased incidence of ADHD in children.
Utah became the first state to to ban fluoride in public drinking water on Monday when Republican Gov. Spencer Cox said he would sign legislation that bars cities and communities from deciding whether to add the chemical compound to their water systems.
Some cities across the country have already gotten rid of fluoride from their water, and other municipalities are considering doing the same.
READ MORE: PolitiFact: Does fluoride cause cancer, IQ loss and more? Fact-checking RFK Jr.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
