A bill that would have repealed a state law mandating the fluoridation of drinking water in Arkansas failed to pass in a state senate committee Wednesday, after the eight-member Senate Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee deadlocked on the measure.
Four members of the committee membership voted against the bill, Senate Bill 2, and four voted in favor of the repeal.
State law mandates that any water system that “supplies water directly or through a consecutive system or consecutive systems to five thousand (5,000) persons or more” follow fluoridation requirements set by the Arkansas Department of Health.
Arkansas is one of roughly a dozen states that mandate fluoridation, and was one of the more recent ones to do so, having passed its mandate in 2011. Fluoride has long been touted for its oral health benefits by public health experts, with research on the impacts of fluoride on dental health dating back for decades, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Fluoride in drinking water became a national talking point in recent months thanks to President Donald Trump’s nominee to run the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has called for removing the mineral from public water supplies. MORE
