Well being and Human Companies Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is increasing his campaign to show again the clock on federal well being coverage.
Having undermined the authorities’s assist for childhood vaccines amid the worst measles outbreak in years, he’s now focusing on one other longstanding pillar of American public well being: water fluoridation.
HHS will convene a board of consultants to evaluation the federal authorities’s suggestion that communities fluoridate their water, the company introduced on Monday. The Environmental Safety Company is concurrently launching a evaluation of the science on fluoride’s well being results.
The top results of these inquiries appears to be a foregone conclusion: Kennedy advised the Related Press that he needed the federal government to cease recommending fluoridation. He has referred to as fluoride “industrial waste” and blamed it for an array of well being circumstances, from neurological harm in kids to bone most cancers.
Banning fluoride is an integral a part of Kennedy’s marketing campaign to Make America Wholesome Once more. The information of the evaluations got here on the identical day he appeared in Salt Lake Metropolis to reward Utah for being the first state to formally ban water fluoridation.
”It is mindless to have it in our water provide,” Kennedy advised reporters. “I’m very, very happy with this state for being the primary state to ban it, and I hope many extra will come.”
The complicated science on water fluoridation, briefly defined
Water fluoridation, which the US authorities has supported since 1950, has lengthy been thought-about a serious public well being win. The Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention reported as just lately as final 12 months that, based mostly on the perfect out there proof, fluoride in water reduces tooth decay by 25 % for youngsters and adults. About three in 5 People now drink fluoridated water from their group water system.
Considerations about fluoridated water’s well being results have been round for many years, too, significantly amongst conspiracy-minded people like Kennedy. Like many conspiracies, it has some foundation in actuality — however the actuality is way extra nuanced than Kennedy’s new name for banning it outright would counsel.
As neuroscientist Celia Ford coated for Vox final 12 months, questions round fluoridated water started rising after the US Nationwide Toxicology Program acknowledged with “average” confidence that publicity to elevated fluoride ranges might cut back IQ in kids.
That’s a discovering value taking significantly — however solely in context. The elevated fluoride ranges that had been studied within the report had been above 1.5 milligrams per liter — greater than twice the prevailing federal pointers for a way a lot fluoride communities ought to add to their water. The measurement of the impact was additionally pretty small, amounting to 1 to 2 factors.
The actual concern is for the small minority of individuals, about 1.9 million, who stay close to a group water supply that already accommodates greater than that 1.5 milligrams per liter of naturally occurring fluoride. (These of us would possibly need to think about a water filter, Ford wrote.)
As for Kennedy’s different claims, similar to fluoridated water’s supposed hyperlinks to most cancers, the CDC has stated research of most cancers in areas with excessive pure ranges of fluoride have discovered no connection.
The precise harm RFK Jr.’s campaign in opposition to fluoride might do
Whereas Kennedy stands out as the US’s prime well being official, he doesn’t have the ultimate phrase on whether or not People can entry fluoride to scale back the chance of cavities. States and localities management group water techniques that serve most People. Hawaii, as an example, has by no means permitted water fluoridation, although the follow will not be outright banned.
That may minimize each methods: Kennedy has stated he hopes different states and cities comply with Utah’s lead, and his assist might embolden some state and native officers to maneuver ahead with their very own bans. However he can’t change state legal guidelines on fluoridation; some states, California and Illinois amongst them, require cities of a sure measurement to fluoridate their water. They don’t appear prone to take cues from Kennedy.
The excellent news is that even when Kennedy can efficiently encourage extra states to embrace his anti-science platform and take away fluoride from their water provide, the last word impact on folks’s dental well being might finally be restricted. One latest evaluation of the scientific literature famous that water fluoridation research carried out after 1975, when fluoride was launched in toothpastes, have discovered much less of an impact on tooth decay than earlier research had.
However even when the sensible influence of Kennedys’ campaign could also be marginal, it might probably nonetheless be influential: A plurality of People, 41 %, stated in a January 2025 Ipsos ballot they didn’t know whether or not fluoride was dangerous and useful. Now the nation’s prime well being official is asking for it to be banned. And the impact of such a ban would fall disproportionately on the least advantaged — one in 4 kids residing under the federal poverty line expertise untreated tooth decay.
Mixed together with his actions in opposition to vaccines, the worry stays that Kennedy’s reckless overhaul of longstanding public well being suggestions might undermine public belief in and assist for a variety of public well being efforts, some way more essential than water fluoridation.
