In the 1950s, conspiracy theorists opposed to the introduction of fluoride to public water supplies claimed that the mineral was actually a communist chemical weapon created by the Soviets to make American children stupid. Seven decades later, a large body of evidence exists supporting the introduction of low levels of fluoride into public water supplies as a major public health victory that has been great for everyone’s teeth. Unfortunately for the literal health of the republic, the current Human and Health Services Secretary is a conspiracy theorist who believes vaccines cause autism and that fluoride lowers people’s IQ.
On Thursday, Kennedy told Fox News that he doesn’t really care if his plan to remove fluoride from the nation’s water supplies causes children and low-income Americans to develop more cavities or other dental ailments.
“It is an issue. It’s a balance. You’re gonna see probably slightly more cavities,” Kennedy acknowledged, claiming that “in Europe, where they banned fluoride, they did not see an uptick in cavities.”
Fluoride is not banned in Europe, although fluoridation is not a common practice. A 2018 report found that the countries that previously had active fluoridation programs stopped them not because of public safety concerns, but because either fluoride was naturally available in their water supply or it was already being added to other products like bottled water or milk. Many countries also provide free dental checkups and fluoride treatments as part of routine care programs for children, a proposal that — if floated in the United States — would be immediately written off as communist trollop.
Some studies have found that if consumed in excess quantities for an extended period of time, fluoride can have negative effects on the body and brain. Typically, the threshold for such effects are several times greater than the recommended limit in the United States of 0.7 mg per liter of water.
Kennedy on Thursday cited a meta-review of studies issued by the National Toxicity Program earlier this year, which Kennedy claimed had found that “there is a direct correlation between the amount of fluoride in your water and your loss of IQ. So even small increments of fluoride cause lost IQ.”
The actual meta-analysis contains a large, bolded disclaimer that “it is important to note that there were insufficient data to determine if the low fluoride level of 0.7 mg/L currently recommended for U.S. community water supplies has a negative effect on children’s IQ.”
“The determination about lower IQs in children was based primarily on epidemiology studies in non-U.S. countries such as Canada, China, India, Iran, Pakistan, and Mexico where some pregnant women, infants, and children received total fluoride exposure amounts higher than 1.5 mg fluoride/L of drinking water,” the report says. “The U.S. Public Health Service currently recommends 0.7 mg/L, and the World Health Organization has set a safe limit for fluoride in drinking water of 1.5 mg/L.”
Other members of the scientific community criticized the report as having “employed unjustified methodological and statistical errors which invalidate their conclusion, and demonstrate that the data cannot be analysed as the authors assert,” and recommended the report be retracted.
As previously reported by Rolling Stone, removing fluoride from public water supplies could widen the health gap between Americans. Almost 70 million adults in the U.S. do not have dental insurance, and, as Melissa Burroughs, public policy director at CareQuest Institute for Oral Health, put it: “The absence of fluoride in drinking water can lead to higher rates of untreated cavities, which, beyond physical discomfort, can result in severe oral infections.”
If, as Kennedy claims, he is committed to “making America healthy again,” banning fluoride from water supplies is a leap and a bound in the wrong direction.
