The City Commission in Winter Haven, Florida, voted to remove fluoride from its drinking water.
Another U.S. municipality this week has decided to remove fluoride from the water supply, after a federal judge ordered a federal agency to look into alleged health issues posed by the compound and ahead of the second Trump administration.
A federal judge in September ruled that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must take steps to address studies that have raised concerns about whether fluoride in drinking water leads to lower IQ in children. Meanwhile, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has suggested he would push to end water fluoridation.
Now, the city of Winter Haven, Florida, will be the next municipality to remove fluoride after its City Commission voted on Tuesday to approve the “authorizing the discontinuation of the fluoridation of the City water supply system,” according to a video of the meeting uploaded to YouTube.
Winter Haven Commissioner Brad Dantzler said that the judge’s ruling in September and Kennedy’s potential nomination are reasons that fluoride should likely be removed from the city’s drinking water. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen had found that some studies may support arguments that fluoride levels could pose an unreasonable risk to the public’s health and that the EPA must address those concerns.
Following Chen’s ruling, several other cities have moved to remove fluoride from their water supplies, including two municipalities in Westchester County, New York, and the Texas city of Abilene.
Dantzler noted in the meeting that fluoride “is good for your teeth,” but he cautioned that “we don’t know” what the compound does when it’s ingested.
The move came just two days before Trump named Kennedy to lead HHS, although he still needs to be confirmed by the Senate.
Kennedy has long opposed water fluoridation, and he wrote on social media platform X that he would push Trump into removing it from public drinking water sources.
“Fluoride is an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease,” Kennedy wrote on X.
