Although U.S. troops’ dental readiness has improved some over the last decade, there’s also been a decline in the percentage of troops with the best dental health, according to new Defense Department statistics.
From 2014 to 2024, the percentage of troops with the worst levels of dental health decreased from 8.3% to 6.3%, while the percentage of troops with the best dental health dropped from 48.9% to 44.8%, DOD officials stated in a late September memo to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
The memo, reviewed by Military Times, comes in response to Warren’s letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth earlier this year seeking answers on how potentially ending fluoride use in drinking water, as championed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., could undermine military readiness.
Specifically, Warren asked for details on whether troops’ dental readiness had improved since the implementation of a 2013 DOD requirement to fluoridate water on military installations that serve more than 3,300 people. According to DOD, 14 of those installations haven’t implemented the policy, mostly due to varying concentrations of naturally occurring fluoride in their water supply.
Currently, there aren’t any service members who are reported as being nondeployable due to dental problems, according to responses provided by Anthony J. Tata, under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, to Warren. In 2018, however, officials modified how that status is reported: Troops assessed as having the higher level of dental problems are categorized as “not medically ready to deploy,” but they aren’t reported in the “nondeployable population.”
Still, dental emergencies account for 20-30% of all “disease non-battle injuries,” or injuries not directly related to combat, during deployments, DOD officials said in their memo to Warren. The officials cited a 2024 study outlining 264 dental emergencies per 1,000 deployed personnel per year, based on an analysis of multiple long-term studies.
Role of fluoride in dental readiness
There is no clear evidence that fluoridation of drinking water alone is responsible for improved military dental readiness, defense officials told Warren.
“It is likely that a combination of factors, including fluoridation and other preventive interventions, have contributed positively to improved dental readiness across the force,” they said.
But there are complicating factors. Some installations purchase water from non-DOD drinking water providers, while many military members live off base. Access to care, disease patterns, diet, oral hygiene practices and regular dental preventive care also impact an individual’s dental health and readiness, officials noted.
That said, removing fluoride from drinking water would likely be associated with increased rates of dental decay, according to a DOD position paper and a joint report by the DOD and the Journal of the American Medical Association Health Forum, cited in DOD’s response.
The impact of removing fluoride might be negligible in the short term, officials said, but studies suggest it could have a long-term impact on dental disease, leading to a projected increase in demand for dental treatment and more temporarily nondeployable service members.
“Our military is already falling short on delivering high-quality dental care for our service members, and Secretary Kennedy’s fluoride crusade is threatening to worsen this crisis and hurt our military’s ability to deploy where they’re needed,” Warren said in a statement to Military Times.
Original article online at: https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/pay-benefits/military-benefits/health-care/2025/11/07/troops-dental-readiness-showing-some-improvement-some-decay/