Late-night television host Jimmy Kimmel pulled Calgary into the United States’ fluoride debate on Wednesday, citing the city’s decision to reintroduce the mineral back into the water supply.
Kimmel referenced a bill that is ready to become law in Utah that would make it the first state to put a full ban on fluoride in public water systems. The precedent-setting bill would strip cities’ ability to decide whether to put fluoride in their water supply.
“While this bill is on a desk about to become law, the City of Calgary, up in Canada, is spending $28 million to put the fluoride back in their water cause they got rid of it and realized what a giant screw-up it was,” Kimmel said on Jimmy Kimmel Live!
The fluoride debate in the U.S. was recently reignited after new federal health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. expressed skepticism about water fluoridation.
Calgary’s reintroduction of fluoride was originally approved in 2021. The move followed a plebiscite on the issue in which 62 per cent of Calgary voters cast ballots in favour of adding fluoride back.
Last month, the City of Calgary said the re-addition of fluoride would be complete by the end of March.
“We’re working on reintroducing fluoride into our drinking water, with commissioning of newly installed equipment at Calgary’s two water treatment plants currently underway,” the city said in a statement Thursday.
The city says it will provide an update in early March on a specific implementation date.
Calgary discontinued adding fluoride to its drinking water in 2011.
Kimmel cited stats from a University of Calgary study that showed the rates of dental treatments under anesthesia rose steadily after the loss of fluoridation.
“In just eight years after fluoridation ended in 2011, the need for intravenous antibiotic therapy by children to avoid death by infection rose 700 per cent at the Alberta Children’s Hospital,” U of C professor James A. Dickenson told CTV News in April 2024.
“I know Canadians lose a tooth every time they play hockey, but this is another level of teeth losing,” Kimmel added.
The cost to reintroduce fluoride into Calgary’s water system includes $28 million for treatment plant upgrades and annual maintenance and operating costs of up to $1 million.
With files from The Associated Press and CTV News Calgary’s Jordan Kanygin
