Republican lawmaker will renew efforts to make water fluoridation optional in Kentucky
By Sarah Ladd
Kentucky Lantern
A Republican lawmaker will once again push to end Kentucky’s requirement for certain utilities to add or adjust fluoride levels in drinking water.
Rep. Mark Hart, R-Falmouth, filed House Bill 141 in 2024, but it died without clearing either chamber.
Speaking before the Interim Joint Committee on State Government Tuesday, Hart said he wants to “undo an unfunded mandate” and give communities choice on whether they consume water with added fluoride. The legislation he plans to introduce in the 2025 session wouldn’t ban the use of fluoride, he said.
Fluoride is a naturally-occurring mineral, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and can be found in most water.
In August, the National Toxicology Program, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said “higher levels of fluoride exposure, such as drinking water containing more than 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per liter, are associated with lower IQ in children.” In September, a federal judge in California ordered the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to “engage in rulemaking regarding the chemical” ranging from “requiring a mere warning label to banning the chemical.”
U.S. District Court Judge Edward Chen, an Obama appointee, took care to say his ruling “does not conclude with certainty that fluoridated water is injurious to public health” but that the evidence of its potential risk now warrants some kind of EPA action.
Cindi Batson, a nurse with Kentucky for Fluoride Choice, testified alongside Hart.
“One of the things Kentucky cannot afford to do,” she said, “is to ignore this risk in our state.”
Health advocates sent the committee a letter asking lawmakers to keep fluoride in community water. Those who signed the letter are Delta Dental of Kentucky, Kentucky Dental Association, Kentucky Dental Hygienists’ Association, Kentucky Oral Health Coalition, Kentucky Primary Care Association, Kentucky Voices for Health and Louisville Water Company.
“Despite our historic issues with poor oral health in Kentucky, we have made strides towards improvement in oral health by leading the nation with 99% of Kentucky communities with water fluoridation programs,” the letter states. “We as a commonwealth cannot afford to move backward.”
Hart said the federal ruling and summer report put Kentucky at risk of liability issues.
“We mandate this be put in our water,” he said. “Now that the data and the research is showing that it does create an unreasonable health risk, when people start seeing the outcomes — or if they, unfortunately, have a health problem based on the water fluoridation in our water because we’re mandating it — at some point the state’s gonna be responsible for that.”
The pro-fluoride advocates wrote in their Tuesday letter that they have a “unifying interest to improve the oral health for all people in the Commonwealth of Kentucky” and “are deeply concerned about any efforts to remove water fluoridation programs in our communities.”
The 2025 legislative session begins Jan. 7.
Kentucky Health News is an independent news service of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, based in the School of Journalism and Media at the University of Kentucky, with support from the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky.
