From the jaws of defeat: Revitalizing legal frameworks for community water fluoridation

Fluoridation of community water systems is an efficient and cost-effective public health response to the epidemic of dental caries. Despite overwhelming scientific evidence and widespread authoritative medical and dental support for fluoridation, however, the debate over community water fluoridation continues in state and local legislatures and courtrooms. Given the limited preparation of many dental public health professionals in areas of law and public policy, there is a need for improved understanding of law and the dynamics of adopting, implementing, and defending public health laws and regulations. This project analyzes public health legal principles relating to improved oral health through community water fluoridation, identifying for oral health advocates the legal boundaries and considerations that pervade debates about maintaining or expanding community water fluoridation. By surveying laws, legal reforms, legal challenges, and related interpretive material about community water fluoridation, the project identifies an exhaustive array of state statutes and local materials, creating a web-accessible, searchable database of laws and legislative processes, including legislative records, regulatory implementation, legal challenges, and litigation strategies. Examining these fluoridation initiatives and anti-fluoridation legal challenges throughout the nation, this project describes best approaches to legal issues of fluoridation, promulgated regulation and/or defended constitutional and statutory challenges, providing public health professionals, oral health professionals, dental public health advocates, the legal community and policy-makers with improved resources to support their efforts to apply law as an effective tool for community water fluoridation.