Nashville, Tennessee — A new bill that says fluoride can’t be added to Tennessee’s public water lines was first looked at by the Senate last week and passed. This is the first vote and discussion in a long line that will happen about fluoridating the water in the state.
Tennessee Sen. Joey Hensley presented Senate Bill 162 on Thursday, January 16.
With this short bill, an amendment is made to stop “adding of fluoride to a public water system by the water supplier who owns, operates, or controls the public water system.”
Water fluoridation is the process of adding fluoride to public water sources to help people keep their teeth healthy.
But in the past few years, more people who are against fluoridating water, such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s choice for Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, have pointed to ideas that fluoride has bad side effects. It’s still not clear what amount of fluoride in drinking water could hurt children’s brain development, so U.S. District Judge Edward Chen told the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to do more to control it in September of last year.
The TN Department of Health says that about 88% of Tennesseans who get their water from community sources now have fluoridated water.
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