Kentucky state lawmakers are once again debating the pros and cons of fluoride in drinking water, with some arguing it all boils down to local control.

As our June Leffler reports, some Republicans think cities, not the state, should decide if fluoride is a necessary public health measure.

This Northern Kentucky Republican says it's his ninth time proposing Kentucky eliminate a state mandate on fluoride.

Our emphasis is undoing the unfunded mandate and allowing people to have the freedom of choice when it comes to, in this case, dental treatment.

We're not promoting, fluoride one way or the other.

The Northern Kentucky Democrat pushes back on that argument.

You keep saying this is not a fluoride anti fluoride discussion, but we have to have your colleagues to your left who are telling us that fluoride is terrible for us.

These two lawmakers testified alongside a nurse and a dentist skeptical of fluoride.

Federal agencies like the National Institutes of Health say adequate fluoride intake reduces the risk of cavities.

But this is like at the highest level of government.

These are research and PhD scientist who, looked at all the literature being published over the years.

And we're not talking about 1 or 2 studies.

We're talking, you know, 64 studies, identified, 18 of which were very high quality.

These are studies funded by the National Institutes of Health grants and conclusions that there is a moderate confidence in the body of evidence that estimated four out exposure is inversely associated with IQ in children.

So the more fluoride exposure means a drop in IQ.

The current NIH factsheet on fluoride does highlight these findings, but also says, quote, the review did not address lower concentrations of fluoride, such as the point 7mg/l concentration recommended by the US Public Health Service for community drinking water.

Kentucky's dental association offered this testimony.

We have 79 years of quality science showing that this is effective, and, you know, it's no different than the, done in the South, which when was the last time you saw somebody with a goiter?

You know, or the vitamin D in the milk?

So I think, you know, there's different ways to look at a lot of different things.

This is considered one of the top public health campaigns in the history of the United States.

In America is the fluoridation of water.

A water company representative says this bill would create a patchwork of fluoridated and non fluoridated communities that would be difficult to serve.

So I think it's highly probable throughout the Commonwealth that you're going to have conflicting positions that different governing boards are making.

And so even if for the example, say, Shelbyville, if they determined to remove fluoride, if and and by contrast, Louisville water makes a determination to continue adding fluoride.

Fluoride is still going to be provided to those those communities.

Even though the governing body of Shelbyville, took a position to remove fluoride because there's no way to effectively remove fluoride once it's in the drinking water water source.

This year, similar legislation passed out of the House, though more than ten Republicans voted alongside most Democrats in opposing the measure.

For Kentucky edition, I'm Jeanne Leffler.

Thank you Joan.

The Trump administration announced in April that it will review potential health risks of fluoride in drinking water.