Ever since the government started adding fluoride to the public water supplies in 1945, there have been many people who have challenged the legality of fluoride in our water supplies.
They raised concerns about whether a city has the right to add a drug to the water supply that could help many people, but have side effects such as dental fluorosis.
This has caused some cities to stop fluoridating their water supplies. For example, two of the three largest cities in Alaska, Fairbanks and Juneau no longer fluoridate their water supplies.
A recent news broadcast by the CBS TV station in Anchorange, Alaska asks whether or not Anchorange will be the next Alaskan city to stop fluoridating the public water supply.
Is Water Fluoridation Legal?
A new website aims to answer the question of whether or not water fluoridation is legal. It is called FLUID, which stands for Fluoride Legislative User Information Database.
The site contains a database of federal, state, and local actions regarding water fluoridation as well as legal opinions of state and federal courts and allows anybody to search throughout this goldmine of information.
The website states that its mission is the following:
FLUID was created to be an up-to-date, user-friendly tool to answer questions about the legal and policy status of community water fluoridation in all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The goal of FLUID is to enable users to access information based on legal fact and to be a resource that allows them to compare their current or proposed policies with others from across the country.
Conclusion
When the legality of water fluoridation is questioned in court, it seems that water fluoridation is usually upheld by the courts as legal.
What are your thoughts? Do you think it’s legal to fluoridate public water supplies? You can leave your thoughts in the comments section below. Thanks for reading!
I believe that fluoride is good for your teeth Calcium fluoride exactly. I don’t know why they would put sodium fluoride =Rat poison in our water. Do they think we are like rats. I say let the judges that think its ok drink a big glass of sodium fluoride it to prove its good for us.
funny you say that. i was just thinking the same thing before i read your comment. i’d love to ask them if the fluoride will harm our health in any way. of course when the proponents argue that it won’t, i would present them a bottle of tasty minty toothpaste and ask that they swallow a teaspoon or two. how i’d love to see a justification for the refusal to do such a thing.
Hi John – I couldn’t find sodium fluoride on this list of popular rat poisons on Wikipedia, so I’m really not sure if it is a rat poison or not. Hopefully they don’t think that we’re like rats, or it sounds like they’re trying to poison us! I think the more logical argument to make is that they’re aware of the tooth protecting abilities of fluoride and want to pass that on to everyone through the public health measure of water fluoridation.
If you’re concerned about humans ingesting rat poison, you might want to take a look at the most widely prescribed anticoagulant drug in North America, warfarin.
Unfortunately, the fluoride ion is what is really good for our teeth because it can get incorporated into our enamel and make our teeth more resistant to cavities. When fluoride is in an easily dissolved compound, such as sodium fluoride, the fluoride ion is readily available. When fluoride is bound to calcium, it forms a strong bond, and it is hard to get the fluoride to separate from the calcium so it can help our teeth.
Many toothpaste makers ran into this problem when they were using sodium fluoride in their toothpaste with abrasives that contained calcium. The fluoride would combine with the calcium and therefore showed no beneficial effect on the person’s teeth. Once they switched to a different abrasive, the fluoride was able to be effective.
There is a 400 plus page report from HHS. Rat poison and dental products.
I have the link if you want it.