SARASOTA, Fla. (WWSB) – The Manatee County Commission Tuesday struck down an ordinance requiring the county to add fluoride to its drinking water.
Not that the county has done it lately — the fluoridation system hasn’t worked since 2021.
“There is an ordinance in place that requires us to have fluoride, but we are not fluoridating at this point,” said Commissioner Amanda Ballard.
In a 5-1 vote Tuesday, commissioners voted to remove the ordinance requiring adding fluoride to local drinking water.
Ballard led the charge to change the ordinance and end the practice of fluoridating, citing a report that evaluated fluoride’s effects.
“That meta-analysis basically showed that with every part-per-million that fluoride in the urine increased, you had a one-point drop in IQ,” Ballard explained.
But retired dentist Bob Klement is a big advocate of adding fluoride to water.
“They said, in the report, that this high fluoride caused this decrease in IQ, but they did not test the water for any other chemicals that could have been a problem,” Klement rebutted.
He also says many of the studies that found fluoride to have adverse effects were evaluating mineral levels that were much higher than what has been done in the U.S.
And now that the county has gotten rid of fluoride in water, some are concerned about the impact it will have on the dental health of people who may not have access to the necessary resources.
“Fluoridated water definitely helps reduce decay 25 to 50 percent, especially in children of lower socioeconomic groups,” noted Klement.
But Ballard says there are plenty of other ways to get fluoride without the risks she says come with having it in the local water system.
“Fluoridated toothpaste is available everywhere in our community. We also have a lot of sources of fluoride in our diets, so things like shellfish, grapes, raisins, and oatmeal.”
One of the other things commissioners cited was the fact it could soon be banned statewide.
Health concerns aside, they said it doesn’t make much sense to spend $2 million fixing the system just to potentially have it banned in the near future.
Original article online at: https://www.mysuncoast.com/2025/04/15/manatee-county-officially-ends-fluoridating-water/