The Federal government says the amount of fluoride in America’s drinking water should be reduced. This is the first change in fluoride recommendations in more than half a century.
Seventy years ago, Grand Rapids, Michigan was the first city in America to fluoridate its water; a decade later Canton was the first in Ohio. And, in 1962, the U.S. government said to improve dental health, all public water should include a fluoride additive of about 1 part per million.
Not much changed until this week.
The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services issued a guideline dropping fluoride levels about by a third.
“There’s fluoride in toothpaste, there’s fluoride in mouth rinses, and other supplements that weren’t necessarily available back then. And so, they appear to feel that the bases are covered enough as far as people being exposed to fluoride to back off the amounts added to drinking water a little bit,” Tyler Converse said. He currently runs Canton’s Water Department.
Converse says changes in the state will come through Ohio EPA because it has jurisdiction over this within the state.