MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – The Florida fluoride fight is taking center stage in Tallahassee where lawmakers are considering a bill that would allow a ban on fluoride statewide.
“Don’t pretend this bill is about freedom,” said pro-fluoride speaker Jackson Oberkink. “It’s government overreach dressed up as anti-wokeness, and if that’s what this chamber stands for now, maybe you need more soy in your diet.”
The dig at senators did not sway the majority from moving the huge farm bill forward -- a bill that has, in its 109 pages, a line that says “… additives in water that are not for water quality are prohibited."
The bill never mentions the word fluoride, but doesn’t have to because if it makes it all the way to law, fluoride as one of those additives will be banned from water systems all over the state.
“No government entity has the right to medicate us against our will,” said anti-fluoride speaker Pueschel Schneier.
The Fiscal Policy Committee heard from pro and con speakers, which also has been happening locally.
Much of the talk at Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava’s gathering of the medical and scientific community Monday in advance of her veto decisions was pro, but not for Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, and across the country, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is now planning to request a nationwide ban on fluoride in water.
“It should be something that local authorities should be able to determine,” said Cecile Scoon, with the Florida League of Women Voters.
