Calgary Brings Fluoride Back to Its Drinking Water

The taste and smell won’t change, but starting on Monday something was different about Calgary’s water supply — fluoride is back in the taps across the city in Western Canada.

Fluoride, a mineral found in water, has widely established dental benefits shown to strengthen the tooth surface, or enamel, and help prevent decay.

Calgary stopped adding fluoride to its water supply in 2011, deciding that the cost to treat its system with the mineral outweighed the benefits.

But a push by city residents coupled by worsening oral health among children has led Calgary officials to reverse course.

“There’s no question that it reduces cavities, which is not just a cosmetic issue, because poor dental health is associated with poor body health,” said Joe Schwarcz, a chemistry professor at McGill University in Montreal and director of a university office focused on debunking misinformation in science.

Fluoridation is largely viewed as one of the most significant and cost effective public health innovations of the last century. But fluoride has long been regarded with suspicion in some quarters and has been the target of conspiracy theories. In the 1950s critics of Communism in the United States claimed it was a mind-control tool to poison Americans.