Ohio
Ohio GOP wants to stop adding fluoride, which prevents tooth decay, to water
COLUMBUS, Ohio — A group of Ohio Republican lawmakers is moving to ban the state and public water systems from adding fluoride, which prevents tooth decay and cavities, to water.
The Buckeye State is known for its water — and the benefits that dentist Dr. Matthew Messina sees from it.
“We’ve had that kind of a profound increase in public health that comes from modern dentistry and fluoride is a part of that,” Messina said.
Naturally occurring in water, fluoride is a mineral that years of research has shown strengthens teeth and prevents cavities and tooth decay. As the four-decade-long serving dentist explains, most public water systems add fluoride.
“It’s hailed as one of the top public health measures in the last century, because really, for a very low cost and very low amount of effort, the massive benefit that this produces for the community is tremendous,” he said.
He has worked in communities that didn’t have fluoride, he said, and the difference between children from cities and ones from rural areas that didn’t have public water fluoridation was night and day.
“We got a chance to see rampant dental decay in children,” he said. “It was like going back to the dark ages, so I really hope we’d never go back there again.”
There has always been a back-and-forth for decades on fluoride, much like vaccines. In recent years, there has been a campaign to push back on the mineral in water.
Although U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is not a doctor, he has argued that the mineral is toxic.
“Fluoride is an industrial waste,” he wrote on X.
The effort has trickled down to Ohio.
State Rep. Levi Dean (R-Xenia) has proposed House Bill 182, which would ban public water systems from adding fluoride.
“It just says that individuals can then choose whether they want to ingest it or not — it’s not forced on them,” Dean told me.
Current law requires water systems to fluoridate water if the natural content is less than .8 milligrams per liter.
“It’s just for some people for health reasons or just even for individual freedom reasons, they don’t want the local governments to force this into their drinking water,” he said.
Dean and his GOP cosponsors want to prohibit this requirement. He argued that fluoride is bad for you. I asked him where he got this idea from since dozens upon dozens of research papers for decades disagree.
He cited a recent research study sharing that fluoride may be linked to lower IQ in children.
A study published by JAMA Pediatrics in January did a review and meta-analysis of whether exposure to fluoride was associated with kids’ IQ scores.
The authors found that there is a link between slightly lower IQ in children that have more exposure to the mineral.
But Messina explained that this research article is being taken out of context.
“It brings up a study of parts of the world where naturally occurring fluoride levels are much higher than in most of the United States, and they’re higher than the target levels that we have set,” the dentist said.
Looking into the paper, the authors acknowledged that a majority of the studies they looked at were considered “highly biased,” none of the data is from the United States, and that there was “uncertainty in the dose-response association.”
When the fluoride in the water was less than 1.5 mg/L, the link wasn’t apparent. As mentioned, Ohio has a cap of .8 mg/L.
“Now, there’s disagreement on the concentration of where that starts and how, but that’s why I think it should be up to the individual to choose what levels they engage with fluoride at,” Dean said.
The lawmaker argued that if people really want fluoride, they can buy toothpaste, tablets, or drops.
“I’m not arguing with the fact that it could be beneficial to some people for dental health,” he said. “I’m arguing with the fact that should we be ingesting it, if the benefit is for your teeth, shouldn’t you be applying it just to the teeth and not consuming it?”
Toothpaste has significantly more fluoride than water does, which is why you are told to spit it out, according to the CDC.
The Republican continued that this is about Ohioans having a choice — just like he does, as he uses fluoride-free toothpaste.
“What kind of concerns do you have with Ohio considering to remove fluoride from all public water?” I asked Messina.
“Well, if Ohio did that, we would be stepping back in time,” he responded. “We have a known beneficial, preventative part of our tool kit, and for us to continue to go forward without that — we’re really leaving one of our best weapons behind.”
Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima) seemed interested in the proposal because when asked if the state should keep fluoride in public water, he acknowledged that he “didn’t know.”
“Fluoride naturally occurs in water, I just found that out this week,” he said. “They started adding it.”
He said that people over the past few years have been “dismissed.”
“Now there appears to be some science that says too much fluoride, including adding fluoride, is bad for folks,” he said. “I’m not a scientist, I’m not a chemist… We’re going to sort of litigate that question… in the legislature here over the next couple of months. I don’t know the answer to your question.”
House Minority Leader Allison Russo (D-Upper Arlington), whose background is in public health, was not thrilled to hear about the bill.
“I entirely support fluoride in water,” she said, noting that the benefits are clear in dental health.
I asked her if she saw this as an effort to privatize water.
“I see this as a basic human right,” she continued. “I think the expectation of every household in this country is that you have access to clean tap water in your households.”
Gov. Mike DeWine, who is routinely against non-doctors making health decisions, is not commenting on this bill yet.
Knowing the governor, this would not be out of the realm of a possible veto. He consistently states that he supports science, vaccines, best practices of doctors in gender-affirming care, prevention of tobacco for kids and the stopping of medical misinformation.
Follow WEWS statehouse reporter Morgan Trau on Twitter and Facebook.
TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG) – The FBI was part of a search of multiple properties related to Stansley Mining on Friday, a spokesperson for the agency confirmed.
A Public Affairs Officer for the FBI Cleveland Division confirmed to the 13 Action News I-TEAM that authorities searched a business in the area of Siliva Road in Sylvania, as well as property in Ottawa County by State Route 590 in Benton Township.
Officials with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation told the 13 Action News I-TEAM that they executed a search warrant at the property in Benton Township. Ohio BCI’s environmental division and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency were involved in the search.
It’s unclear exactly what officials were looking for. The FBI spokesperson said there wasn’t additional information to share at this point, but added there is no threat to the public.
Stansley Mining is the entity that owns Rocky Ridge Development, a company at the center of extensive 13 Action News coverage after its South Toledo mining operation was improperly working in a residentially-zoned area.
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CLEVELAND, Ohio — A critically acclaimed name in Cleveland’s food scene is making a comeback of sorts and entering a new era in the food and restaurant business.
After the official closure of Melt Bar and Grilled locations across the area in late 2024, founder Matt Fish is stepping back into the restaurant business with a brand-new concept in Ohio City.
More Melts close
Fish is preparing to open “Proof Public House” inside the former Proof BBQ space along Lorain Avenue.
The new restaurant and bar is expected to officially open in mid-June after recently obtaining its food service license.
The announcement was just made on the restaurant’s official Instagram page this week.
But Fish says this project is very different from Melt’s previous projects, with more than a dozen locations across Ohio.
“I’m starting from scratch. Brand new concept. Brand new feeling, brand new attitude,” Fish said. “I wanna get back to basics.”
Fish describes Proof Public House as a punk rock-inspired neighborhood bar and restaurant with elevated comfort food, craft drinks, and an evolving seasonal menu.
“I’ve always wanted to get back to my roots,” Fish said. “I’ve always wanted to get back to a small place and recapture that magic of what Melt Bar and Grilled was when it first opened up.”
The longtime chef and restaurateur says music and creativity will help define the atmosphere and capture the essence.
Fish grew up on punk rock music and is also a drummer.
He says Cleveland’s history and punk rock roots make this latest project feel even more special.
The menu, he says, will feature chef-driven comfort food with rotating seasonal dishes and a specialized beverage program.
“Just have fun with the menu,” Fish said. “The beverage program will be very seasonal. It’s gonna be very evolving.”
Although many fans still associate Fish with the iconic grilled cheese sandwiches that helped make Melt Bar and Grilled a Northeast Ohio staple after opening in 2006, he says this new chapter is about moving forward.
“That part of my life is over and gone, but it was something special to so many of us,” Fish said.
Still, longtime Melt fans may notice subtle nods to the past.
Fish hinted there would be occasional “odes to Melt” appearing on the menu in the future, in some capacity.
He also credits former Proof BBQ and current Visible Voice Books owner Dave Ferrante for encouraging him to jump back into the hospitality business.
Fish quietly consulted on projects behind the scenes after Melt’s closure, including work connected to Visible Voice.
“I want to do something for myself, do something for the City of Cleveland, do something for my family and friends,” Fish said.
Proof Public House is expected to announce an official opening date soon.
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Ohio, one of the nation’s data center destination hot spots, is suspending a tax break that has been critical to its competition with other states to attract the massive new facilities that power and train artificial intelligence chatbots.
The move Wednesday by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine comes as tax breaks for energy-hungry AI data centers are increasingly playing a role in state budgets and the industry is under pressure to pay the full costs of the vast network of its computing warehouses needed to power AI.
The size of Ohio’s tax break skyrocketed, dwarfing previous projections, as opposition to data centers is sweeping through cities, suburbs and towns there and prompting lawmakers to form a committee to study the impact.
In the meantime, residents are trying to bypass the GOP-controlled Legislature and get a referendum on November’s midterm election ballot that’s designed to permanently ban hyperscale data centers, likely the strictest such statewide ban under consideration in the U.S.
DeWine’s office cited the rising utilization of the tax break and the state Legislature’s new research undertaking to declare a “pause” in granting it to new applicants.
“The governor felt it was the right time to let the citizens know, let businesses know that we’re going to pause on new offers of this tax incentive while that process plays out,” DeWine’s spokesperson, Dan Tierney, said Thursday.
DeWine has stressed that he supports data centers — calling them a critical component in today’s economy — and that the roughly $37 billion in data center-related investments in 2024 and 2025 in the state has been worthwhile.
The state, in 2024, had used previous history in projecting that the exemption would total $136 million in fiscal 2025 and $142 million in fiscal 2026. It was $554 million in 2024 and nearly $1.6 billion in 2025, the state reported.
The resumption of Ohio’s tax break — should it resume — could happen under a new governor: DeWine is term-limited and the race is on to replace him. The Republican nominee, Republican Vivek Ramaswamy — an Ivy League-educated biotech billionaire — likes to talk about turning the Ohio River Valley into the next Silicon Valley.
However, Ramaswamy and Democratic nominee Amy Acton could share the midterm ballot in November with the citizen-led drive to ban the construction of data centers across Ohio. It faces a July 1 deadline to gather more than 400,000 voter signatures.
State tax breaks for the massive data center industry are facing growing criticism by governors and lawmakers.
The cost is likely rising as data center and AI-related investments drive higher consumer spending in the U.S. and tech giants keep boosting their spending commitment to hyperscale data centers.
In Virginia, negotiations between the state House and Senate have been hung up for months on a bid by Senate Democrats to eliminate the roughly $1.6 billion annual tax break.
Thirty-eight states have some form of a sales tax break for data centers, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Many were approved more than five years ago, when data centers were a small, but growing part of the economy, and well before the late 2022 debut of OpenAI’s ChatGPT launched an intensifying buildout of increasingly large data centers.
Ohio’s exemption is fairly broad, applying not only to construction materials, but to the expensive equipment — such as server racks and cooling systems — used in data centers. Operators might buy new server racks every couple of years as the technology improves.
DeWine’s order was a surprise.
Dorsey Hager, executive secretary-treasurer of the Columbus/Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council, where union members spend much of their time on data center projects, said he was upset with DeWine and trying to understand the governor’s reasons.
He worried, he said, that developers that were in the midst of trying to finalize plans or permits for a project might have second thoughts.
Lawmakers acknowledged the opposition in announcing their joint data center committee on May 13.
“We’re well aware of initiatives to limit Ohio data center development during this critical point in America’s history,” state Rep. Adam Holmes told a news conference. “This public concern has become a priority issue for us and could have dramatic impact on Ohio and American’s future.”
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Follow Marc Levy at http://twitter.com/timelywriter
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