(NewsNation) — Former independent candidate for president Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has previously said that if Republican President-elect Donald Trump won the White House, the administration would advise water systems in the United States to remove fluoride.
This is despite experts and officials saying the mineral is both safe and beneficial to people’s dental health.
Kennedy, who says he’s been promised a position reorganizing different agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration and CDC by Trump, has been criticized over his views on fluoride as well as for spreading misinformation about other public health matters, such as COVID-19 and vaccines.
Trump, who won the 2024 presidential election Tuesday night, hasn’t officially confirmed whether he will take up Kennedy’s suggestion.
Asked by NBC about it during an interview Sunday, Trump says he hasn’t talked to Kennedy about this plan, “but it sounds OK to me.”
“You know, it’s possible,” he said to 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.
While it can reduce people’s risk of cavities, the naturally occurring fluoride found in drinking water is usually at too low of levels to do so, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wrote.
While the agency does not mandate community water fluoridation, state and local governments can decide whether to implement it into their systems. Voters will decide whether to adjust water fluoride, or some states have laws that require systems of a certain size to provide fluoridated water. In other areas, there is already enough fluoride already in water naturally to prevent cavities, the CDC said.
The U.S. Public Health Service’s recommended level of fluoride concentration is 0.7 milligrams of fluoride per liter of water, though the CDC says this is not an enforceable standard.
When will House results come out?
“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, in 1945, was the first city to take part in community water fluoridation. That same year, a planned 15-year trial was launched in four cities. The CDC said that 577,683 people by 1948 had received fluoridated tap water. Organizations such as the American Dental Association, Association of State and Territorial Dental Directors and USPHS issued statements endorsing community water fluoridation in June 1950.
As of 2010, 73.9% of the United States population had access to public water that contains fluoride at levels designed to protect teeth.
What are the benefits of fluoridating water?
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 throughout their life span,” a figure the CDC agrees with.
“This results in less mouth pain, fewer fillings or teeth pulled, and fewer missed days of work and school,” the CDC said.
Good dental health is also important for the heart. Issues like gum disease, for instance, are associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, experts such as those at the University of Pennsylvania say.
“The scientific weight of sound evidence around the benefit of community water fluoridation is clear and compelling,” Edgar said in a past statement.
Communities may even see a financial boost if they spend on water fluoridation, with the National Institutes of Health finding strong evidence that the economic benefit of such a program exceeds the intervention cost. 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 Program, in a study from August, said that it has moderate confidence that scientific evidence shows higher levels of fluoride exposure, meaning more than 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per liter, are associated with lower IQ in children. However, it noted there was “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.”
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This study was criticized by the American Association of Pediatrics, which said it has “important limitations,” such as the fact that high fluoride exposure was defined as double the concentration U.S. officials recommend in community water. Studies included for those at the National Toxicology Program to analyze were “geographically heterogeneous, with different study populations,” and there are a number of factors that affect IQ that could have come into play, the AAP added.
“While additional research to better understand the association and potential biologic mechanisms would be important, there’s nothing about the research that makes me concerned (about) … low levels of fluoride through use of toothpaste and drinking fluoridated water,” Dr. Charlotte W. Lewis, a member of the AAP Section on Oral Health, said in a statement after the study came out.
In addition, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine rejected previous drafts of the NTP report two times.
“I’m concerned there are some questions about the validity of those (NTP) conclusions and that they’re not supported by the entirety of the research,” Lewis said. “And they’re not really supported by other groups that have tried to do systematic analyses and meta-analyses looking at these results and have come to very different conclusions.”
What RFK Jr. has said about fluoride
Kennedy made a post on X Saturday saying that on Jan. 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, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease,” he claimed.
Speaking to journalist Steve Inskeep on NPR Wednesday morning, Kennedy reiterated this view.
“We don’t need fluoride in our water,” Kennedy said on “Morning Edition.” “It’s a very bad way to deliver it into our systems.”
However, medical and scientific experts disagree. Dr. Paul Offit, a researcher and physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told NPR that 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 (Kennedy’s) tweet.”
“Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a science denialist. He makes up his own scientific truths and ignores the actual truths,” Offit said.
