Kentucky GOP lawmakers are making another attempt to get rid of a state statute that requires most water systems to add fluoride to their supplies – a practice that has been widely recognized as a successful public health campaign for decades.
A bill that would have given local water systems the ability to choose for themselves whether to fluoridate their supplies passed out of the Kentucky House last year, but failed to pass the state Senate.
On Wednesday, the Kentucky House local government committee passed House Bill 103 – which would remove the state’s water fluoridation mandate and give water systems immunity from civil or criminal liability in relation to its fluoridation status, whether it chooses to add fluoride to its water supply or not. The house fluoride bill has over 30 GOP cosponsors. A similar bill has also been filed in the state Senate, but hasn’t been assigned to a committee.
Kentucky Republicans’ efforts aren’t isolated. Last year, two states – Florida and Utah – banned fluoride from being added to public water supplies.
Republican Rep. Mark Hart has been the lead sponsor of the failed bills to make fluoride optional for Kentucky water systems in several prior legislative sessions over the past decade, but he said this bill would not take the Bluegrass State in the same direction.
“This bill does not ban fluoride. It takes away the state unfunded mandate and makes it a local control,” Hart said.
However, at Wednesday’s committee meeting, some dental health advocates argued that the state fluoridation mandate helps to improve dental hygiene for people who may not be able to afford routine dental care.
Mary Ann Burch, with the Kentucky Dental Hygienists’ Association, said removing the state mandate could disproportionately impact low-income households and families on Medicaid if their water systems choose to stop fluoridating their supplies. She said fluoride in water helps to prevent cavities – and said a reduction in fluoride presence would not only impact the health of people who can’t access regular preventative care, but also the state’s healthcare costs.
“An increase in the dental decay [rates] will increase the cost of Medicaid significantly. There are not enough dentists to provide care for Medicaid patients already, because of the low reimbursement rate. Prevention is the best answer,” Burch said.
Some supporters of the measure pointed to a 2024 meta-analysis by the federally-run National Toxicology Program that suggests that high levels of fluoride – at least double the recommended level of fluoride in the United States – could negatively impact children’s IQ levels. However, some dental health experts have questioned the methodology behind the NTP analysis. Another study published in late 2025 suggests that children whose water had fluoride levels more commonly present in the United States performed better on cognitive tests than those whose drinking water did not have fluoride in it.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is currently working on what it’s calling a “gold standard” review of public health risks from fluoride in drinking water. The EPA is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – who has encouraged states to ban public water fluoridation.
Kentucky’s House Bill 103 now heads to the floor for consideration.
