Hillsborough commissioner wants county to stop adding fluoride to water

TAMPA — A decades-old debate over whether fluoride should be added to Tampa Bay’s drinking water might be renewed.

On Sept. 26, Hillsborough County Commissioner Joshua Wostal posted on the social media site X that he intends to bring a motion to end the practice of Hillsborough County adding fluoride to “our children’s water supply. No excuses.”

His post was in response to federal judge’s Sept. 24 decision to order the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to further regulate fluoride in drinking water. District Court Judge Edward Chen, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, based his decision on a recent report by the National Toxicology Program, which said that high levels could pose a risk to the intellectual development of children.

The federal agency’s report stated that exposure to fluoride at levels at or above 1.5 milligrams per liter of water is associated with reduced IQ in children.

Currently, fluoride is added to tap water in the United States, with 0.7 milligrams per liter being considered the optimal amount. It was first added to tap water in the 1950s to help children fight tooth decay.

Hillsborough County’s water naturally has around 0.5 milligrams of fluoride per liter, a county spokesman said. The county then spends about $200,000 per year, which includes the chemical and equipment, to bring that level to 0.7.

On its website, the National Toxicology Program states that there is insufficient data to determine if 0.7 milligrams “has a negative effect on children’s IQ.” But the judge ruled that plaintiff Food & Water Watch successfully argued there is not enough evidence proving that amount does not harm children.

“There is some uncertainty as to the precise level at which fluoride becomes hazardous,” Chen wrote in his 80-page ruling. “Under even the most conservative estimates of this level, there is not enough of a margin between the accepted hazard level and the actual human exposure levels to find that fluoride is safe.”

He stopped short of ruling what the response must be, but wrote that it could range from a warning label to banning the chemical.

The National Toxicology Program “found no evidence that fluoride exposure had adverse effects on adult cognition,” according to its website.

Wostal told the Tampa Bay Times he began looking into the issue not long after being elected in November 2022.

“If we know this is a causation of low IQ [in kids], why are we unwittingly inching closer to that 1.5 ... when we don’t know what else consumers are using that puts them at the limit?”

That thought was echoed in the judge’s ruling.

“Fluoride may also be ingested through, e.g., tea, fish, toothpaste, and commercial food and beverage made with fluoridated water,” Chen wrote. “Nonetheless, the risk analysis should consider the additive effect of the chemical under the subjected condition of use.”

“It’s always been floated as a conspiracy. It’s a fact,” Wostal said. “It’s easy too quickly frame something as a conspiracy ... Maybe we shouldn’t write it off so quickly.”

The fluoride debate is not new to the Tampa Bay area.

In 2011, the Pinellas County Commission voted to stop adding fluoride to the drinking water after critics seized on concerns that it could have a negative impact on the health of young children, including reduced IQs.

But dentists rallied, voters brought in two new commissioners who campaigned on pro-fluoride platforms, and the chemical was returned to drinking water more than a year after being removed.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.