Government officials in Florida's Winter Haven City voted to eliminate fluoride from its water supply, citing Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the incoming head of the the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and his national campaign on removing fluoride from the water supply.
"I'll tell you that after the recent election, President Trump has named Mr. Kennedy to be his H-something-something director, and Mr. Kennedy has made it well known and has publicly said that he wants fluoride out of the water around the entire country," Commissioner Brad Dantzler said Tuesday, according to WFLA News.
"So this issue, we may be at the front of it, but this issue is coming just based upon current events and what's going on in Washington D.C." Dantzler continued.
Mayor Pro Tem Brian Yates added that the government "really should not be involved in healthcare, or what goes into the bodies of citizens," and reportedly alluded to his hyperthyroidism being connected to fluoride, WFLA reported.
The vote passed 3-2 in favor of removing fluoride. One of the two dissenters, Commissioner Clifton E. Dollison, dubbed himself "the poster child" for the benefits of a fluoride-rich water supply.
"My mother had nine children. We grew up poor, lived in a project. I never saw a dentist until I was an adult," Dollison said at the meeting. "I went to the dentist, got my first checkup ... he said, 'You do not have a cavity in your head. You must have lived in a place where there was fluoride'."
The commissioner added that removing fluoride would affect "those less fortunate" in the community.
Meanwhile, Hannah Bush, a Winter Haven resident, echoed Dantzler's sentiment and spoke out against fluoridated water. She shared her family uses a reverse-osmosis filtration system to remove toxins but added that it is unable to eliminate the chemical.
"I can get false teeth," Bush said at the meeting. "I only have one brain."
Kennedy previously said that "fluoride is a poison" in an October interview with the New York Sun.
The city will eliminate fluoride from the water supply by Jan. 1, 2025, or "as soon as reasonably practical thereafter," per WFLA News.
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