After three hours of impassioned pleas and dueling science among dozens of dentists, the Melbourne City Council voted Tuesday to stop adding fluoride to the city’s drinking water.
By a 6-to-1 vote, the City Council decided to discontinue the practice, immediately, after more than 40 speakers at the marathon meeting that lasted into the wee hours of Wednesday.
“This is the latest meeting we’ve ever had,” said Melbourne Mayor Paul Alfrey, who proposed removing fluoride.
“This is something very important,” he said, adding that new science and customers’ lack of informed consent justifies the removal.
“They have a right to say ‘no’ to something,” Alfrey said just before the vote, as one man in the audience waved a hand-held American flag.
City Councilwoman Mimi Hanley was the dissenting vote, saying dental society members convinced her of its benefit.
“Well-water people don’t get fluoride, and they go to the dentist a lot more,” Hanley said. “Fluoride in the water is not the silver bullet, it’s not going to stop every single cavity.”
Other council members, including Rachael Bassett, cited lack of customer choice.
“My main concern is that we didn’t give people consent,” Bassett said. “We really shouldn’t give it to people that don’t want it.”
Melbourne has added fluoride to its water since 1966.
Early in the discussion, Alfrey said adding fluoride to drinking water is a “practice, rather than a city code requirement.”
“Now we have new science,” he said. “More and more people don’t want this in their water.”
The mayor’s proposal followed a unanimous vote two weeks ago by the Palm Bay City Council to abandon efforts to repair that city’s water fluoridation equipment, which has been off-line since 2016 at one of its water-treatment plants and since 2017 at the other plant. It also comes in the wake of a recommendation from Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo to discontinue its use, as well as a recent major court ruling that bolsters the “anti-fluoride” side of the debate.
Community water fluoridation is the process of adjusting the amount of fluoride in drinking water to a level recommended for preventing cavities. Fluoride naturally occurs in water, but not at the levels recommend for preventing tooth decay.
Supporters of adding fluoride to water say drinking fluoridated water helps keep teeth strong and reduces cavities. Detractors say it should be up to individual families whether they want to ingest water that has added fluoride.
Dentists disagree
About a dozen or so dentists who spoke Tuesday night disagreed that the science shows the risks of fluoride outweigh its benefits, Yoshita Patel Hosking, with Viera Pediatric Dentistry, among them. She said the dose and exposure is safe, effective and inexpensive, when used in optimal quantities.
“I’ve never seen severe dental fluorosis,” she said of the tell-tale discoloration of young children’s teeth from consuming too much fluoride. But she has seen lots of cavities in children who lack health care. “In Brevard, we have a significant access-to-care issue,” she said.
Other dentists said they favor fluoride removal. Dr. Lee Sheldon, a periodontist in Melbourne, cited peer-reviewed research that has found lower IQs in children who drink water with fluoride compared to those who don’t.
A European study found that children drinking water in areas with high levels of naturally occurring fluoride had lower IQs than other children. The levels of fluoride those children consumed was much higher than is used in community fluoridation.
“I’m a dentist. I can fix a cavity, I can’t fix cognitive impairment,” Sheldon said.
Dr. Chris Edwards, Viera dentist, said the first half of his career, he supported fluoride, but no longer does because of newer science.
“It was a scam. It was a marketing scam,” Edwards said. “Fluoride is a toxin. It’s a neurotoxin. … The risks far outweigh the benefits. … It’s mass medication.”
Health official, court ruling bolster case against fluoride
Alfrey’s move to remove fluoride is in line with a recommendation from Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who heads the Florida Department of Health. In November, Ladapo announced guidance recommending against community water fluoridation, saying there was a potential neuropsychiatric risk associated with fluoride exposure.
The American Dental Association pushed back hard against Lapado’s statements.
“It’s disheartening to hear Dr. Ladapo’s misinformed and dangerous comments regarding community water fluoridation,” said Brett Kessler, D.D.S., president of the American Dental Association. “The ADA believes in the use of proven, evidence-based science when making public policy decisions. For Dr. Ladapo to call community water fluoridation ‘medical malpractice’ and call on all municipalities to end its practice is a dangerous statement that stands to harm the oral and overall health of all Floridians.”
Since Ladapo’s statement, several other Florida cities have stopped adding fluoride to their drinking water, including Port St. Lucie, Stuart and Tavares.
Palm Bay voted earlier this month not to pursue repair the fluoridation machines at its water plants. There has been no added fluoride in the city’s water since 2017.
Brevard County stopped adding fluoride to its Mims treatment plant in 2021. The two private plants the county took over in Barefoot Bay and San Sebastian Woods never added the chemical to their water.
In contrast, the Leesburg City Commission in December voted 3-2 to proceed with previously approved plans to begin adding fluoride to its drinking water, starting next summer.
Stopping fluoridation of drinking water also has been bolstered by a recent groundbreaking federal court ruling. On Sept. 24, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate the “unreasonable risk” the court concluded that fluoridation of drinking water poses, ruling in favor of the nonprofit Food & Water Watch Inc.
Chen ruled the evidence suggests that the department of Health and Human Service’s “optimal” level of drinking water fluoridation (0.7 milligrams per liter) poses an “unreasonable risk” of reduced IQ in children.
Melbourne provides drinking water for 168,000 customers, including the city’s own residents, but also for Indialantic, Indian Harbour Beach, Melbourne Beach, Melbourne Village, Palm Shores, Satellite Beach, West Melbourne and unincorporated areas of Brevard County south of the Pineda Causeway.
Satellite Beach sent a website about the debate but has yet to take a position, according to Melbourne’s meeting agenda documents. Indian Harbour Beach City Manager John Coffey had asked via email for Melbourne to hold off on the decision until his City Council can consider the matter.
An effort that Alfrey — then a District 5 City Council member — helped push to stop adding fluoride to Melbourne water failed in November 2019 by a 4-3 vote. But all four supporters of fluoride at the time have since left the City Council.
Original article online at: https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/local/2025/01/15/melbourne-florida-will-stop-adding-fluoride-to-drinking-water/77666781007/