Removing fluoride from Utah’s public drinking water was a mistake. One must only look several hours north to our neighbors in the city of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, to see what will likely happen here in Utah over the next several years.
In 2011, Calgary voted to remove fluoride from their public drinking water for many of the same reasons that Utah’s legislature voted to remove it from ours. However, after a 2021 study that followed second grade school children in Calgary for 8 years, the city changed course and decided to add fluoride once again to the public drinking supply. This study compared school children cavity rates in Calgary to those of children in Edmonton and found that cavity rates in Calgary increased to 64.8% compared to Edmonton’s 55.1%, nearly a full 10% difference.
Perhaps 10% seems a modest difference, but on a population-wide scale 10% is thousands more kids who suffer pain from tooth decay and whose parents must pay for dental care or receive financial aid for such care. The societal cost grows further when you consider that not only are cavities more common, but they are also more severe, requiring more expensive procedures.
Additionally, consider that Israel watched the same events unfold when they removed fluoride from their water in 2014. They later reversed course and moved to add it back in, but not before there was a significant increase in childhood cavities.
Usually the phrase “history repeats itself” refers to history that is older than the previous decade. Unfortunately, I fear Utah will only recognize this mistake after a rise of cavity rates and dental costs in several years, just like Israel and Calgary.
Jack Hindley, Salt Lake City
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