Florida’s future will be one with dental-health-promoting fluoride removed from the drinking water while cancer-causing radioactive sludge is added to road-building materials.
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In case you’re keeping score, there’s a move in Florida to remove cavity-fighting fluoride in the drinking water while adding radioactive industrial waste products to roads.
I know. I know. We’ve got it backwards again. We should keep adding fluoride in the water while removing radioactive waste from road-building material.
But … Florida. I guess you could say we’re speaking up for cavities and cancer, and providing a fresh new counter-consensus voice in public health.
The Florida Department of Health, under the guidance of the fringy, anti-vax Florida Surgeon Gen. Joseph Ladapo, has taken a stand against the practice of fluoridating drinking water, something most water systems do to encourage dental health — especially among children.
The science is clear. Water fluoridation is safe and effective.
In fact, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has called the fluoridation of public drinking water, a practice that started in 1945, one of the 10 great public health achievements of the last century.
“Community water fluoridation is a cornerstone strategy for the prevention of cavities in the U.S.,” the CDC site says. “It is a practical, cost-effective, and equitable way for communities to improve their residents’ oral health regardless of age, education or income.”
The effects of fluoridation in the water has been dramatic, the CDC says.
“Drinking fluoridated water keeps teeth strong and reduces cavities by about 25 percent in children and adults,” the CDC wrote. “This results in less mouth pain, fewer fillings or teeth pulled, and fewer missed days of work and school.”
The Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics echoed those views.
“Insufficient fluoride exposure can have significant negative effects on oral health,” the group said in a news release.
It called cavities the “most common chronic disease in childhood” and one that particularly affects poor children who have less access to dental care.
The American Dental Association (ADA), which also supports fluoridation warns against misinformation on the issue.
“The ADA is aware there is widespread misinformation circulating online and in social media around community water fluoridation. The Association urges its members and the public to be cautious of ‘pseudo-scientific information’,” the association warned.
“This information is not always based on research conducted according to impartial and evidence-based scientific methodology; and the conclusions drawn from research are not always scientifically justifiable or without bias.”
I think they’re talking about us.
Because it seems that we here in Florida are relying on studies that say that too much fluoride – fluoride in doses far above those in drinking water – can be harmful.
“Due to the neuropsychiatric risk associated with fluoride exposure, particularly in pregnant women and children, and the wide availability of alternative sources of fluoride for dental health, the State Surgeon General recommends against community water fluoridation,” the Florida Department of Health advises.
This push against fluoridation of drinking water in Florida has now moved to the state legislature, where Republican lawmakers are backing legislation that takes the decision to fluoridate drinking water away from local communities, and outright bans it across the state.
Florida fluoride bill takes power of health decisions away from Floridians
The proposed fluoride ban is a small part of a large Florida farm bill. It has the backing of Florida Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson.
Simpson called the public health practice of fluoridating drinking water “government prescribed medicine without the consent of the consumer.”
The bill’s sponsor in the Florida Senate, Sen. Keith Truenow, R-Tavares, said banning fluoride “ensures that individuals and families have the final say over their health.”
Actually, it just takes that decision away from people on a local level – including the more than 100 public water systems in Florida today that include fluoride in the drinking water.
That number includes five systems in Palm Beach County: Delray Beach, Wellington, West Palm Beach, Palm Beach County Water Utilities and the Lake Region facility.
If this bill passes, it will, by state decree, override all local decisions to trust the advice of the country’s most reliable medical institutions.
The effort to remove fluoride from drinking water comes as Florida is experimenting with adding radioactive waste to road-building materials in a pilot project to benefit one of the state’s biggest polluters.
Fluoride is bad but radioactive materials are just fine
The production of fertilizer by the Mosaic company creates a radioactive sludge called phosphogypsum, which is kept away from the public and stored in mountainous stacks. There are 25 of these stacks, which rise up to 200 feet, and contain more than a billion pounds of this waste.
For years, the fertilizer industry has sought to override environmental restrictions by finding ways to share hundreds of thousands of tons of their radioactive waste with the rest of us.
Two years ago, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill that ordered the Florida Department of Transportation to do a feasibility study on adding the radioactive waste to road-building materials in Florida.
And last month, the federal Environmental Protection Agency approved a pilot project to use the radioactive waste on private roads on Mosaic’s property.
Environmental groups warn that spreading tons of radioactive waste on the roads would be a health hazard to road construction crews and the people who live nearby. And that the pilot project is just the first step in making this practice widespread on public roads in the state.
Two Florida Democrats in Congress have authored a bill called “The No Radioactive Roads Act” to stop this.
Don’t count on it. I’d say the smart money is on Florida doing the wrong thing in both cases.
And that Florida’s future will be one with dental-health-promoting fluoride removed from the drinking water while cancer-causing radioactive sludge is added to road-building materials.
Frank Cerabino is a news columnist with The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA Today Network – Florida. He can be reached at fcerabino@gannett.com.
