If the 31 sponsors of House Bill 16 are successful, Kentucky will let local water systems’ governing bodies decide whether or not to have fluoridated water. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Sarah Ladd)
FRANKFORT — A bill to make water fluoridation optional in Kentucky passed the House on Wednesday with bipartisan opposition.
House Bill 16, should it become law, means Kentucky will let local water systems’ governing bodies decide whether to add fluoride to water. The 68-29 vote came after 30 minutes of debate that focused on benefits of fluoride, state versus local control and more.
“House Bill 16 removes the unfunded state mandate on water producers that requires fluoride be added to water after the water is treated and clean for consumption,” the primary sponsor, Rep. Mark Hart, R-Falmouth, said. “It does not ban fluoride, nor does it prohibit water producers from adding fluoride to the water.”
Kentucky currently requires water utilities serving more than 3,000 customers to add low levels of fluoride to drinking water which, according to the National Institutes of Health, helps prevent cavities and tooth decay.
Rep. Ryan Dotson, R-Winchester, called fluoridation “mass medicating without informed consent.”
“Water operators are not medical professionals,” Dotson said. “We don’t know how much is going in. I’m sure they do the best they can, but at the end of the day, they’re not medical professionals.”
Most states leave water fluoridation to local governments. According to the Fluoride Action Network, Kentucky is one of 13 that currently mandate it.
Rep. William Lawrence, R-Maysville, pointed out how poorly Kentucky ranks for dental health with its fluoridated water program.
“We have all these facts about how much better it is for the state and our dental rates,” he said. But: “It’s not working. We need to do something else, but this is a step in the right direction.”
Democrats condemned the bill as an attack on science that could exacerbate health inequities in Kentucky.
Rep. Rachel Roarx, D-Louisville, said it “would be a real shame” to remove fluoride and “leave it up to the average citizen for if they need to supplement for fluoride.”
“If we’re so interested in removing fluoride from water, then we should pony up some money to study this problem so that way we can actually look at the long term impacts and have better data to make this decision,” she said.
During the committee discussion on this bill, both sides acknowledged studies showing a mixed bag of results on how exposure to high levels of fluoride affects children’s IQs. Several dentists said the low levels Kentucky’s water has is helpful in strengthening teeth and protecting them from cavities and decay.
Also in committee, Steve Robertson, the executive director of the Kentucky Dental Association, said he expects removing fluoride means an increase in Medicaid expenses — about $19 million for every 10% of Kentuckians who lose that access.
Rep. Adrielle Camuel, D-Lexington, called water fluoridation “one of the most effective public health interventions of the past century.”
She expressed concern about which communities would opt in and what that would mean for overall health.
“Allowing a patchwork of fluoridation creates inequitable health outcomes,” Camuel said. “Communities with fewer resources or greater political opposition to fluoridation end up with higher rates of preventable dental disease. This particularly impacts vulnerable populations in Kentucky. It’s our children, it’s the elderly and those who have limited access to dental care.”
Rep. Daniel Grossberg, D-Louisville, said “this bill, which allows fluoridation to be optional, is essentially the same as allowing schools to go back to teaching about a round Earth as optional.”
“It concerns me today that we are challenging well-accepted science without legitimate reason to do so,” said Grossberg.
In 2024, when Hart also tried to remove the fluoride mandate, the bill didn’t pass either chamber. Now that it’s cleared the House, it can go to the Senate for consideration there.
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