Florida will become the second state in the nation to prohibit fluoridation of public water supplies, reversing decades of public health policy in favor of a new mindset that discounts experts and embraces individual autonomy.

“It’s forced medication when they’re jamming fluoride. And they did it because if you have fluoride, it’ll help with dental. And I’m not saying that’s not true, but we have other ways where people can get access to fluoride,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday in Miami. “When you do this in the water supply, you’re taking away a choice of someone who may not want to have overexposure to fluoride.”

The state House and Senate passed the fluoride ban last month. DeSantis traveled to Miami to announce he’d sign the legislation, a decision that was expected, hours after the Miami-Dade County Commission overrode the county mayor’s veto of a measure putting an end to fluoridation of the county’s water supply.

The statewide ban, once DeSantis signs Senate Bill 700 into law, would go into effect July 1.

For DeSantis, it is a return to his approach during the COVID pandemic, when he carved out a political brand for himself. As the pandemic wore on, he eased restrictions he initially imposed, challenged the public health establishment, and touted Florida as a place for people who wanted to flee public health restrictions in their home states.

DeSantis’ staff resurrected the slogan on Tuesday, placing a sign on the lectern where he spoke proclaiming “Free State of Florida.”

Public health

People with expertise in dentistry and public health, both practitioners who have experience treating public health and scientists who study public health — decried the pending enactment of the law as a move back in time that will degrade people’s health for years to come.

“You’re going to increase the amount of dental disease because of the lack of fluoride in the water,” said Dr. Bruce Tandy, of Delray Beach, who retired after 40 years and remains active in the field teaching dental students at Nova Southeastern University and helping with a Florida Dental Association that provides free dental care for people in need.

“All my professional friends, we were just shaking our heads. This just doesn’t make sense,” Tandy said.

State Sen. Barbara Sharief, a Broward Democrat, an advanced practice registered nurse who also has a doctorate in nursing practice and founded a pediatric home health care company, unsuccessfully sought to convince her colleagues to vote against the measure last month.

“I’ve seen firsthand how critical fluoridation is to our children’s health. I’m deeply concerned that three years from now we’ll be right back here scrambling to reverse this damage as preventable dental diseases will surge in our child population,” Sharief said during the Senate debate.

“When communities stop fluoridating, cavities increase (and) school absences due to dental pain increase,” Sharief said.

Tandy said “science overwhelmingly supports fluoridation in the water. We’ve seen over the years it’s been called one of the great public health wins that we’ve accomplished in this country and around the world.”

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, a DeSantis appointee, said science doesn’t support fluoridation.

At the Miami event with the governor, he likened those who want to continue fluoridation to Linus, the “Peanuts” cartoon character who would never relinquish his security blanket.

“This fluoridation is like, I think of Charlie Brown,” Ladapo said. “I can’t remember his name, but the little guy holds his blanket, right? And I love it, hold your blanket. But unfortunately, he’s a kid, but what we have instead, we have professionals, there are doctors, dentists, public health leaders who are holding on to fluoridation like that blanket,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter what the evidence shows, right? Whatever the studies show about potential harms in children and pregnant women and who knows about the rest of us, they’re just holding on to it,” Ladapo said. “It’s really cute when you’re a kid, but you can’t hold on to that blanket as a grown-up.”

Ashley Malin, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Florida, also appeared at the DeSantis event. She said “major milestones” in research show that stopping fluoridation would “protect the brains of children in Florida from an unreasonable risk of harm for generations to come.”

Fluoride levels

Dr. Aileen Marty, an infectious disease expert and professor at Florida International University’s medical school, said the amount of fluoride added to water supplies is safe and effective.

Fluoride is naturally occurring, she said. In some places it’s too high, but in many places, including typically in South Florida, it’s too low, she said.

Too little fluoride increases dental problems, which can lead to more widespread physical problems in the human body, she said.

The objective, Marty, Sharief and Tandy said, is 0.7 milligrams per liter, which is sometimes described as parts per million.

“Fluoride at 0.7 milligrams per liter is safe. The so-called toxic dose would require a person to drink 128 gallons of water in one sitting, which is a physical impossibility,” Sharief said. “This isn’t a debate about liberty, it’s a debate about responsibility.”

Tandy discounted data that’s been cited by opponents from a study in Pakistan and India — “at fluoride levels that were six times what we’re actually putting in the water to use it as a basis to scare technique to let people think that IQ levels for kids were going down because there is fluoride in the water, versus the research that’s gone on for over 50 years that basically talks about the efficacy of .7 parts per million in the water.”

Political decision

For decades, opposition to fluoride in drinking water was the realm of fringe conspiracy theorists, exemplified by the 1964 film classic “Dr. Strangelove.”

An insane Air Force general, Jack D. Ripper, launches a nuclear attack against the Soviet Union. Ripper was so obsessed with fluoridation of water, which he called “the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot that we have ever had to face,” that he drank only distilled water or rainwater.

The Cold War is long over, but the battle over fluoridation has raged anew in recent years.

State Rep. Daryl Campell, a Broward Democrat, told his colleagues that the legislation was “a gift to conspiracy theories at the expense of common sense and public health.”

State Rep. Daniel Alvarez, a Hillsborough County Republican, told his colleagues before they voted that the issue was “not about fluoride. This is about your liberty,” adding it was about facts, “not conspiracy.”

“This would honestly be a joke if it didn’t have such dangerous consequences,” state Sen. Tina Polsky, a Broward-Palm Beach county Democrat said during the debate on the legislation.

“On a deeper level it has to do less with science and less with fluoride and more of sense of who’s in charge,” said Charles Zelden, a professor of history and legal studies at Nova Southeastern University who periodically teaches a course in conspiracy theories. “It’s about an attitude toward authority, expertise, and it’s a way of saying we know better than the experts. It’s a power play. It’s a way of saying, ‘We’re in charge.’

“It’s happening on a lot of levels with the MAGA movement. It’s a way of saying we don’t accept your established views. Look at their thoughts on COVID. Other examples are measles, or autism and vaccinations. It’s a way of saying we don’t accept your established knowledge,” Zelden said.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has said he supports ending fluoridation of water supplies.

Marty said the fluoride debate mirrors what is happening across the board in medicine “in the last 100 days. I think there’s a lack of general recognition of how science works. It’s very important to emphasize science is not something you believe in. It’s based on empirical measurements and studies and hard data,” Marty said.

“The science of fluoride, like much of what’s going on here, is being questioned by people who haven’t even done the work, haven’t even done the studies,” she said. “People who should not be trusted are unfortunately being held as experts.”

DeSantis and other supporters of banning fluoride said it’s a matter of “informed consent.”

“Jamming fluoride in the water supply irrespective of whatever for the teeth when you can get that other ways, you know, that’s impinging on other people’s ability, you know, to have access to water in ways that they may not want to be exposed to, to what is essentially a forced medication,” the governor said.

Marty said the argument that personal freedom should outweigh the public health benefits is a “super slippery slope.”

People could offer the same reasoning for why they shouldn’t be required to wear seat belts, “because it’s against my will” or arguing that “I don’t feel like stopping at the stop sign. I didn’t see anybody coming.”

“At what point do we have rules in society that help society operate and keep the vast majority of people safe and healthy,” she said.

The fluoride ban was part of a much larger piece of legislation dealing with state agriculture policy. It passed the House and Senate largely along party lines, with Republicans voting yes and almost all Democrats voting “no.”

Utah is the only other state that’s passed a fluoride ban.

Weather modification

DeSantis also said he would also sign Senate Bill 56 to ban geoengineering and weather modification activities. Some conspiracy theorists are concerned about so-called chemtrails.

“We’re not engaged in any of that, but people have concerns, because you have all these people that are saying, ‘Well, the way to fight climate change is to inject this stuff and block the sun,’” DeSantis said.

The sponsor, state Sen. Ileana Garcia, a Miami Republican, briefly fell ill as she was praising DeSantis’ promise to sign it into law.

She sat down for a few minutes and was tended to by Ladapo, the surgeon general, then returned to the lectern. DeSantis said later she appeared to be fine.

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