It’s been considered one of the greatest public health achievements of the 20th century: by putting a small amount of fluoride in the water supply, public health officials have prevented millions of cavities, saved tens of billions of dollars in dental costs, and made children healthier. But in a post on X on Saturday, former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
said one of his first acts as an official in a new Trump administration would be to “advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water.
” He went on to list several false statements about the effects of fluoride and then linked to a video on a website founded by prominent anti-vaccine advocate and conspiracy theorist Del Bigtree. Former President Donald Trump appeared receptive to the idea of nixing fluoride from the water supply. “Well, I haven’t talked to him about it yet, but it sounds OK to me,” Trump said Sunday in a telephone interview with NBC.
“You know, it’s possible.” Experts were swift to condemn the promise to remove fluoride from the water. “Fluoride has been well tested.
It clearly and definitively decreases cavities, and is not associated with any clear evidence of the chronic diseases mentioned in that tweet,” says Dr. Paul Offit, a researcher and physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “Robert F.
Kennedy Jr. is a science denialist. He makes up his own scientific truths and ignores the actual truths,” Offit says.
Fluoride has clear benefits .