Should the decision to have fluoride in Kentucky's drinking water left to be up for local water boards to decide?

It's a question that's been raised in nine different legislative sessions, and it's back again this year.

Plus, while many Kentucky communities have smoking bans, another bill looks to make cigar bars more accessible.

Our Emily Sisk explains as we continue our legislative update.

It makes it all it takes.

A Northern Kentucky lawmaker wants to again make a push for local water boards to decide if their community's water will contain fluoride.

This bill does not ban fluoride.

It makes it a lot of it takes away the state unfunded mandate and makes it a local control.

Representative Mark Hart said under this bill, local water boards would need to seek out medical expertise to make the best decision for their community.

But those who oppose the bill say fluoride is the best defense against dental decay.

And in rural communities, removing fluoride could be harmful.

In my district, you know, it's 43,000 people.

We've got one provider, and that's for in one county.

And they take care of 98% of the Medicaid patients.

I mean, that's one dentist, but I worry about if you take that one line of defense out, what does that mean to those to those patients?

Another Northern Kentucky lawmaker brought up a federal court ruling which said that community water fluoridation could pose a, quote, unreasonable risk linked to lower IQ in children.

That's from that federal court ruling.

So I just wanted to get your take, because I'm hearing something very different in your defense of fluoride.

We feel that the court overreached a little bit.

The preponderance of evidence shows that fluoride has been safe.

As a matter of fact, in fall this year, a new article and review came out in Scientific American, which indicated that there were no indications of cognitive decline.

Ultimately, the bill passed out of the Local government committee despite a handful of no votes, mostly from Democratic lawmakers who said there wasn't enough evidence presented to prove that fluoridation is a problem.