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(NewsNation) — Former independent candidate for President Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has previously said that if Republican President-elect Donald Trump were to win the White House, the administration would advise water systems in the United States to remove fluoride.
This despite the fact that experts and officials say the mineral is both safe and useful for people’s dental health.
Kennedy, who says he was promised a position in which several agencies were reorganized such as the Food and Drug Administration and CDC by Trump, has been criticized for its views on fluoride and for spreading misinformation about other public health issues, such as COVID-19 and vaccines.
Trump, who won the 2024 presidential elections on Tuesday evening, has not yet officially confirmed whether he will adopt Kennedy’s suggestion.
Requested by NBC During an interview Sunday, Trump said he had not discussed this plan with Kennedy, “but it sounds good to me.”
“You know, it’s possible,” he told NBC.
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What is fluoride?
Fluoride is a mineral found in many foods and almost all drinking water, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Although it can reduce the risk of cavities in people, the amount of naturally occurring fluoride in drinking water is usually too low to do this. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wrote.
Although the agency does not mandate water fluoridation in the community, state and local governments can decide whether to implement it in their systems. Voters will decide whether to adjust water fluoride, or some states have laws requiring systems of a certain size to provide fluoridated water. In other areas, there is already enough fluoride in the water to prevent cavities, according to the CDC.
The U.S. Public Health Service’s recommended fluoride concentration is 0.7 milligrams of fluoride per liter of water, although the CDC says this is not an enforceable standard.
When are House’s results coming?
“Community water fluoridation benefits all members of a community by preventing cavities, reducing oral health disparities, and saving money for everyone,” the CDC said.
Grand Rapids, Michigan, was the first city to participate in community water fluoridation in 1945. That same year, a planned 15-year trial was launched in four cities. The CDC said that in 1948, 577,683 people were given fluoridated tap water. Organizations such as the American Dental Association, Association of State and Territorial Dental Directors, and USPHS released statements in June 1950 endorsing water fluoridation in the community.
From 2010 73.9% of the US population had access to public water containing fluoride at levels intended to protect teeth.
What are the benefits of water fluoridation?
Linda J. Edgar, president of the American Dental Association, said “that community water fluoridation prevents at least 25% of tooth decay in children and adults over a lifetime,” a figure the CDC agrees with.
“This results in less mouth pain, fewer fillings or extracted teeth, and fewer missed days at work and school,” the CDC said.
Good dental health is also important for the heart. For example, issues like gum disease are linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, according to experts like those at the University of Pennsylvania say.
“The scientific weight of solid evidence surrounding the benefit of water fluoridation in the community is clear and compelling,” Edgar said in an earlier statement.
Communities can even get a financial boost if they spend money on water fluoridation National Institutes of Health finding strong evidence that the economic benefit of such a program exceeds the intervention costs. Communities with 1,000 or more people saw an average estimated return on investment of $20 for every $1 spent on water fluoridation.
The National Toxicology Programsaid in an August study that it has moderate confidence that scientific evidence shows that higher levels of fluoride exposure, that is, more than 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per liter, are associated with lower IQ in children. However, it was noted that there were “insufficient data to determine whether the low fluoride level of 0.7 mg/L currently recommended for the U.S. water supply has a negative effect on children’s IQ.”
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This study was criticized by the American Pediatric Associationwho said it has “important limitations,” such as the fact that high fluoride exposure was defined as double the concentration that U.S. officials recommend in community water. The studies to be analyzed by those at the National Toxicology Program were “geographically heterogeneous, with different study populations,” and there are a number of factors affecting IQ that could have played a role, the AAP added.
“While additional research to better understand the association and potential biological mechanisms would be important, there is nothing about the research that concerns me (about) … low levels of fluoride from using toothpaste and drinking fluoridated water,” Dr. . Charlotte W. Lewis, a member of the AAP Oral Health Section said in a statement after the study came out.
In addition, the National Academies of Sciences, Technology and Medicine previous designs rejected of the NTP report twice.
“I am concerned that there are some questions about the validity of these (NTP) conclusions and that they are not supported by the entire study,” Lewis said. “And they’re not really supported by other groups that have tried to do systematic analyzes and meta-analyses looking at these results and have come to very different conclusions.”
What RFK Jr. said about fluoride
Kennedy Posted a message on Saturday saying that on January 20, 2025, “the Trump White House will advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water.”
“Fluoride is an industrial waste associated with arthritis, fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders and thyroid disease,” he claimed.
In conversation with journalist Steve Inskeep NPR On Wednesday morning, Kennedy reiterated this position.
“We don’t need fluoride in our water,” Kennedy said on “Morning Edition.” “It’s a very bad way to process it in our systems.”
However, medical and scientific experts disagree. Dr. Paul Offit, a researcher and physician at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said NPR that fluoride has tested well, it “clearly and definitively reduces the number of cavities, and is not associated with any clear evidence of the chronic diseases mentioned in (Kennedy’s) tweet.”
“Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a science denier. He makes up his own scientific truths and ignores the factual truths,” Offit said.
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