Earlier this month, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced plans

to end the federal recommendation that municipalities add fluoride to their drinking water.

The Environmental Protection Agency also said it was reviewing, quote, new scientific information about the risks of fluoridation. Given this renewed debate, we wanted

to hear one perspective from a community that did remove fluoride from its water, the Canadian

City of Calgary. Earlier this week, I spoke to Lindsay McLaren. She's a professor of community

health sciences at the University of Calgary, and I began by asking her why we started

fluoridating water in the first place. In regions of the United States and elsewhere, it was observed

by local dentists. This was back in the 1940s, that people living in certain communities had kind of a staining of their teeth,

but their teeth also turned out to be quite resistant to tooth decay. And so it was

figured out that this was because of naturally high levels of fluoride in the drinking water.

And so that gave rise to the idea that we could actually do this intentionally

and in a controlled manner as a public health intervention

to improve the oral health of the population.

We mentioned that some people have cited risks associated with this practice. And the current HHS secretary in the United States, RFK Jr.,

he had a recent visit to the state of Utah.

Utah itself became the first state to ban fluoride in its water.

Here's what he said there.

And the era of fluoridated,

fluoridated toothpases and mouthwashes, it makes no sense to have fluoride

in our water.

The evidence against fluoride is overwhelming.

In animals, in animal models, and in human models, we know that it causes IQ loss.

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