Health
Miami-Dade Mayor Vetoes Plan to Remove Fluoride From Drinking Water
The mayor of Miami-Dade County on Friday said she vetoed legislation that would remove fluoride from the drinking water in Florida’s most populous county, pushing back on a growing campaign against the mineral used to prevent cavities.
The veto by Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, a Democrat, comes at a moment when critics of adding fluoride to the water supply have a newly powerful ally: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s health secretary, who this week called for states to ban fluoride in drinking water. Utah recently became the first state to outlaw adding fluoride to public water, and several other states, including Florida, are considering similar action.
“The science is very clear,” Ms. Levine Cava said at a news conference on Friday. She added, “ending fluoridation could have real and lasting harm, especially for children and families who cannot afford regular dental care.”
The Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners, a nonpartisan body, approved the measure to ban fluoride on April 1 in an 8 to 2 vote, with three commissioners absent. Nine votes are needed to override the mayor’s veto if all 13 commissioners are present, and it is unclear whether there will be enough support. The next scheduled board meeting is on May 6.
Six commissioners are Republican, including Kevin Marino Cabrera, an ally of Mr. Trump’s who will soon depart to become the country’s ambassador to Panama. Ms. Levine Cava is now the state’s highest-ranking elected Democrat, with Republicans having swept every other countywide elected office in Miami-Dade — including sheriff and elections supervisor — last year.
At the news conference on Friday, Ms. Levine Cava, flanked by dentists and doctors in their white medical coats, cited research supporting her decision.
“I’m doing what I believe is the correct thing to do in the interest of the community’s health, and I stand with our dental and medical experts,” she said.
Commissioner Roberto J. Gonzalez, who sponsored the legislation, accused Ms. Levine Cava of “acting like a typical politician, relying on partisan pollsters and tired talking points, while putting people’s health at risk.”
In a statement on Friday, he called on his colleagues on the commission to override the veto.
The measure would require Miami-Dade to stop adding fluoride to the water supply within 30 days. Ms. Levine Cava said she and her office were closely following efforts in the Florida Legislature to pass a similar ban at the state level.
Many experts have warned that removing fluoride from drinking water would be detrimental to oral health, and particularly cavity prevention. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called fluoridation one of the “10 greatest public health achievements of the 20th century.”
But wariness about fluoride has taken on new life in recent years, especially after the coronavirus pandemic eroded trust in public health interventions. Opponents say they want to protect bodily autonomy and have raised concerns about the possible cognitive effects in children.
They point to a recent review paper, where an analysis of 74 studies conducted by researchers with the National Institutes of Health found that there was a connection between lower I.Q. scores in children with high levels of childhood or prenatal fluoride exposure. (The levels studied were twice as high as those recommended by the C.D.C., and some research has found no link.)
Ms. Levine Cava’s veto puts her at odds with Mr. Kennedy and other fluoride skeptics in the Trump administration, as well as with Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, and his appointed surgeon general, Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo, who has been traveling around the state to speak against fluoridated water.
“Do we want forced medication or do we want people to be able to choose medication?” Mr. DeSantis said recently. “When you are forcing it into the water supply, that’s not really giving people a choice.”
Ahead of the mayor’s announcement, Dr. Ladapo, who has also called for a halt to using Covid vaccines, publicly urged Miami-Dade residents to ask the mayor to support the fluoride ban. “I’ll never understand how anyone feels entitled to add drugs to the water that other people drink,” he said.
Fluoride was first introduced to a city’s water supply in 1945 and began to become common practice across the country in the following decades. Studies show a direct correlation between fluoridation and an improvement in oral health.
“The growing distrust of credible, time-tested, evidence-based science is disheartening,” Dr. Brett Kessler, the president of the American Dental Association, said in a statement this week. “When government officials, like Secretary Kennedy, stand behind the commentary of misinformation and distrust peer-reviewed research, it is injurious to public health.”
Fluoridating water has been debated for years, in part because experts say that excessive exposure to fluoride over a long period can cause health problems. Federally mandated levels have lowered over the years, including after a recent court order.
On Monday, Lee Zeldin, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, announced a decision to “expeditiously review new scientific information on potential health risks of fluoride in drinking water.”
“Without prejudging any outcomes, when this evaluation is completed, we will have an updated foundational scientific evaluation,” Mr. Zeldin said in a statement. He credited Mr. Kennedy for having “long been at the forefront of this issue.”
At a Miami-Dade commission meeting in April, most people who spoke during the public comment portion were against fluoridation. Days after the meeting, Ms. Levine Cava held a round-table discussion with doctors, dentists and others in the community that focused on its benefits.
Nearly 20 other cities and county governments in Florida have voted to remove fluoride from their water supplies since the November election. Among those, Miami-Dade County, with about 2.7 million people, is by far the largest. A bill under debate in the Florida Legislature would bar local municipalities from adding fluoride to water.
Miami-Dade’s politics have shifted sharply to the right in recent years, reflecting Florida’s transformation from a battleground state into one that votes reliably Republican. In November, Mr. Trump became the first Republican presidential candidate to win the county since 1988.
Patricia Mazzei contributed reporting
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A new report by the American Heart Association (AHA) included some troubling predictions for the future of women’s health.
The forecast, published in the journal Circulation on Wednesday, projected increases in various comorbidities in American females by 2050.
More than 59% of women were predicted to have high blood pressure, up from less than 49% currently.
The review also projected that more than 25% of women will have diabetes, compared to about 15% today, and more than 61% will have obesity, compared to 44% currently.
As a result of these risk factors, the prevalence of cardiovascular disease and stroke is expected to rise to 14.4% from 10.7%.
The prevalence of cardiovascular disease and stroke in women is expected to rise to 14.4% from 10.7% by 2050. (iStock)
Not all trends were negative, as unhealthy cholesterol prevalence is expected to drop to about 22% from more than 42% today, the report stated.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klodas, a cardiologist and founder of Step One Foods in Minnesota, commented on these “jarring findings.”
“The fact that on our current trajectory, cardiometabolic disease is projected to explode in women within one generation should be a huge wake-up call,” she told Fox News Digital.
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“Hypertension, diabetes, obesity — these are all major risk factors for heart disease, and we are already seeing what those risks are driving. Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women, eclipsing all other causes of death, including breast cancer.”
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for women in the U.S. and around the world. (iStock)
Klodas warned that heart disease starts early, progresses “stealthily,” and can present “out of the blue in devastating ways.”
The AHA published another study on Thursday revealing one million hospitalizations, showing that heart attack deaths are climbing among adults below the age of 55.
The more alarming finding, according to Klodas, is that young women were found more likely to die after their first heart attack than men of the same age.
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“This is all especially tragic since heart disease is almost entirely preventable,” she said. “The earlier you start, the better.”
Children can show early evidence of plaque deposition in their arteries, which can be reversed through lifestyle changes if “undertaken early enough and aggressively enough,” according to the expert.
Moving more is one part of protecting a healthy heart, according to experts. (iStock)
Klodas suggested that rising heart conditions are associated with traditional risk factors, like smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, obesity and a sedentary lifestyle.
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Doctors are also seeing higher rates of preeclampsia, or high blood pressure during pregnancy, as well as gestational diabetes. Klodas noted that these are sex-specific risk factors that don’t typically contribute to complications until after menopause.
The best way to protect a healthy heart is to “do the basics,” Klodas recommended, including the following lifestyle habits.
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Klodas especially emphasized making improvements to diet, as the food people eat affects “every single risk factor that the AHA’s report highlights.”
“High blood pressure, high blood sugar, high cholesterol, excess weight – these are all conditions that are driven in part or in whole by food,” she said. “We eat multiple times every single day, which means what we eat has profound cumulative effects over time.”
“Even a small improvement in dietary intake, when maintained, can have a massive positive impact on health,” a doctor said. (iStock)
“Even a small improvement in dietary intake, when maintained, can have a massive positive impact on health.”
The doctor also recommends changing out a few snacks per day for healthier choices, which has been proven to “yield medication-level cholesterol reductions” in a month.
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“Keep up that small change and, over the course of a year, you could also lose 20 pounds and reduce your sodium intake enough to avoid blood pressure-lowering medications,” Klodas added.
“Women should not view the AHA report as inevitable. We have power over our health destinies. We just need to use it.”
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Nearsightedness (myopia) is skyrocketing globally, with nearly half of the world’s population expected to be myopic by 2050, according to the World Health Organization.
Heavy use of smartphones and other devices is associated with an 80% higher risk of myopia when combined with excessive computer use, but a new study suggests that dim indoor lighting could also be a factor.
For years, scientists have been puzzled by the different ways myopia is triggered. In lab settings, it can be induced by blurring vision or using different lenses. Conversely, it can be slowed by something as simple as spending time outdoors, research suggests.
Nearsightedness occurs when the eyeball grows too long from front to back, according to the American Optometric Association (AOA). This physical elongation causes light to focus in front of the retina rather than directly on it, making distant objects appear blurry.
The study suggests that myopia isn’t caused by the digital devices themselves, but by the low-light environments where they are typically used. (iStock)
Researchers at the State University of New York (SUNY) College of Optometry identified a potential specific trigger for this growth. When someone looks at a phone or a book up close, the pupil naturally constricts.
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“In bright outdoor light, the pupil constricts to protect the eye while still allowing ample light to reach the retina,” Urusha Maharjan, a SUNY Optometry doctoral student who conducted the study, said in a press release.
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“When people focus on close objects indoors, such as phones, tablets or books, the pupil can also constrict — not because of brightness, but to sharpen the image,” she went on. “In dim lighting, this combination may significantly reduce retinal illumination.”
High-intensity natural light prevents myopia because it provides enough retinal stimulation to override the “stop growing” signal, even when pupils are constricted. (iStock)
The hypothesis suggests that when the retina is deprived of light during extended close-up work, it sends a signal for the eye to grow.
In a dim environment, the narrowed pupil allows so little light through that the retinal activity isn’t strong enough to signal the eye to stop growing, the researchers found.
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In contrast, being outdoors provides light levels much brighter than indoors. This ensures that even when the pupil narrows to focus on a nearby object, the retina still receives a strong signal, maintaining healthy eye development.
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The team noted some limitations of the study, including the small subject group and the inability to directly measure internal lens changes, as the bright backgrounds used to mimic the outdoors made pupils too small for standard equipment.
Researchers believe that increasing indoor brightness during close-up work could be a simple, testable way to slow the global nearsightedness epidemic. (iStock)
“This is not a final answer,” Jose-Manuel Alonso, MD, PhD, SUNY distinguished professor and senior author of the study, said in the release.
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“But the study offers a testable hypothesis that reframes how visual habits, lighting and eye focusing interact.”
The study was published in the journal Cell Reports.
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