Delray keeping fluoride in water, despite visit and urging not to by state surgeon general
- Delray Beach commissioners voted 3-2 to keep fluoride in the city’s water system.
- Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo urged the commission to stop adding fluoride, citing potential health risks.
- The American Dental Association maintains that water fluoridation is safe and beneficial for oral health.
- Those in favor of keeping fluoride argued that its removal would disproportionately impact underserved communities.
- Opponents of fluoridation argued that alternative methods of fluoride delivery are sufficient.
DELRAY BEACH — Despite a visit from State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo on Tuesday, Feb. 4, commissioners in Delray Beach voted 3-2 to keep fluoride in the city’s water system.
Commissioners Tom Markert, Vice Mayor Juli Casale and Deputy Vice Mayor Rob Long voted to keep fluoride in the water, while Mayor Tom Carney and Commissioner Angela Burns voted to remove it.
“It’s not an easy decision to make,” Long said. “Both sides have made genuine arguments in regard to choice. That is a legitimate argument, but there’s also an argument to say that if we took fluoride out of the water, the folks who are the most underserved in the community would be the ones who suffer the most.”
Ladapo, in November, called on water departments across Florida to stop fluoridating their water, arguing that it could be associated with lower IQs in children. The guidance has already resulted at least 11 municipalities that have stopped adding the naturally occurring mineral into the water, including Naples, Stuart, Tavares and Port St. Lucie.
That conservative-leaning medical freedom advice is similar to that of Human Health Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who also has advocated removing fluoride from drinking water.
“It’s one of these issues that I get can make a lot of people uncomfortable, because we get used to certain things,” Ladapo said Tuesday.
Ladapo has visited a number of Florida cities and has offered testimony to his argument during commission meetings with Delray Beach being the latest.
In his November guidance, Ladapo cited recent studies from Mexico, Canada and the Journal of the American Medical Association Open Network that suggest fluoride exposure could be detrimental to the health of some. On Tuesday, he cited a September 2024 federal ruling ordering the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to further regulate fluoride in water because of its potential risk of cognitive decline.
The American Dental Association has since reaffirmed its stance that fluoridation in community water is safe and beneficial to oral health.
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The ADA “remains staunchly in support of community water fluoridation at optimal levels to help prevent tooth decay,” a September 2024 statement said.
District Court Judge Edward Chen, who made the ruling Ladapo referred to Tuesday, stated that the finding did not “conclude with certainty that fluoridated water is injurious to public health.” Still, the ruling required the EPA to take regulatory action, although it did not ban or limit the fluoridation of public water in any way.
How much would it cost to remove fluoride from Delray’s water?
In Delray Beach, the city’s water has been fluoridated for the last 36 years. It would have cost the city $200,000 to remove fluoride from the water.
Some commissioners still had unanswered questions before Tuesday’s vote. Markert, for example, was curious about alternative ways to deliver “optimal” levels of fluoride to residents, if it were to be removed from their water.
“If we’re going to deliver fluoride in a different way, we’re still delivering fluoride to the human body,” Markert said. “I want to know more about these other delivery methods. Can we all afford them? Are they going to be beneficial?”
Markert, one of the three commissioners who voted against eliminating fluoride from the city’s water, suggested a workshop before a decision was made.
The case against: Why did two Delray commissioners vote to remove fluoride?
Carney and Burns voted in favor of the removal of fluoride.
“If you take this away, suddenly kids aren’t going to have fluoride again — that is just not true,” Carney said. “They’re getting enough fluoride in their toothpaste.”
Boca Raton dentist Dr. Jeffrey Ganeles was one of three dentists to speak on the benefits of fluoridated water during Tuesday’s meeting.
“One of the most concerning issues I see on a daily basis is the domino effect in dentistry,” Ganeles said. “It starts with a single cavity, which leads to a filling over time. That filling breaks down and requires a larger replacement, eventually the tooth may need a crown, and when that fails, a root canal.”
He called the treatments required for these procedures “costly, invasive, anxiety-producing and, most importantly, preventable.”
“I can usually tell within minutes whether a new patient grew up in an area of fluoridated water,” he said. “People with a mouthful of fillings, crowns and missing teeth almost certainly did not.”
Currently, the level of fluoride in Palm Beach County water is 0.7 milligrams per liter, which, according to Ganeles, is an acceptable level.
“While concerns about fluoride toxicity exist, the recommended level of 0.7 parts per million is well below harmful levels that are expressed in the literature,” Ganeles said.
Jasmine Fernández is a journalist covering Delray Beach and Boca Raton for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at jfernandez@pbpost.com and follow her on X (formerly Twitter) at @jasminefernandz. Help support our work. Subscribe today.
