News Health & Medicine

Two cities stopped adding fluoride to water. Science reveals what happened

Calgary, Canada, and Juneau, Alaska, show how ending fluoridation can affect health

A child in sunglasses has dental tools inserted in mouth by practitioner wearing blue gloves.

In cities that have stopped adding fluoride to drinking water, children experience more tooth decay, studies have shown.

Juanmonino/Getty Images

By Alex Viveros

Warren Loeppky has been a pediatric dentist in the Canadian city of Calgary for 20 years. Over the last decade, he says, tooth decay in children he’s seen has become more common, more aggressive and more severe. Many of his young patients have so much damage that he has to work with them under general anesthesia.