Well being and Human Companies Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. mentioned on Monday he plans to assemble a job drive and finally change the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention’s steering to cease recommending including fluoride.
His feedback got here throughout a press convention in Utah, which simply grew to become the primary state to ban fluoride from ingesting water programs.
The Related Press was the primary to report Kennedy’s supposed adjustments to the CDC steering.
The CDC at the moment recommends the usage of fluoride to stop cavities.
If Kennedy, who has been outspoken in his assist for eradicating fluoride from water, directs the CDC to alter its steering, it might result in extra cities and states eradicating fluoride from ingesting water, a choice that is made on the native stage.
“Fluoride shouldn’t be within the water,” Kennedy mentioned on Monday.
Well being and Human Companies Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. arrives earlier than President Donald Trump speaks throughout an occasion to announce new tariffs within the Rose Backyard on the White Home, April 2, 2025, in Washington.
Mark Schiefelbein/AP
However the CDC’s steering on fluoride just isn’t enforceable, and a ban on fluoride, ought to it survive authorized challenges, would finally want to return from the Environmental Safety Company.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, additionally in Utah with Kennedy on Monday, introduced that the EPA, too, is reviewing “new science” on fluoride. EPA units the utmost stage of fluoride in water.
“We’re ready to behave based mostly on the science,” Zeldin mentioned on the press convention.
The overview by EPA will “inform any potential revisions to EPA’s fluoride ingesting water commonplace,” a press launch mentioned, particularly citing a report from the Nationwide Toxicology Program, a government-run division.
The August report discovered decrease IQ in kids who had greater ranges of fluoride publicity — about twice the extent really useful restrict for U.S. ingesting water — and mentioned extra analysis is required to find out if the small doses really useful within the U.S. trigger hurt.
Lengthy Island, N.Y.: Water being poured right into a glass from a faucet on Lengthy Island, New York on Oct. 4, 2022. (Photograph by Steve Pfost/Newsday RM by way of Getty Photos)
Newsday Llc/Newsday by way of Getty Photos
“Many substances are wholesome and helpful when taken in small doses however could trigger hurt at excessive doses. Extra analysis is required to higher perceive if there are well being dangers related to low fluoride exposures,” the report mentioned.
The research was additionally cited in a federal decide’s ruling in September that ordered the EPA to take steps to decrease the potential danger of fluoride.
U.S. District Choose Edward Chen mentioned extra analysis was wanted to grasp if the standard quantities of fluoride within the water within the U.S. had been inflicting decrease IQ in youngsters.
“I feel we have to apply the cautionary precept on this nation that we should always do no hurt,” Kennedy mentioned Tuesday. “And it clearly is doing hurt, and the tradeoff is IQ loss in youngsters, and we will not afford that on this nation. We want all of the mind energy that we will to deal with the challenges of the long run.”
In November, shortly earlier than the election, Kennedy pledged that the Trump administration would advise all U.S. water programs to take away fluoride from public water on day one.
The American Dental Affiliation, responding to Kennedy and Zeldin’s feedback Tuesday, mentioned fluoride in water was mandatory for good oral well being and at U.S.-recommended ranges “doesn’t negatively affect IQ ranges.”
“The rising mistrust of credible, time-tested, evidence-based science is disheartening. The myths that fluoridated water is dangerous and not mandatory to stop dental illness is troublesome and jogs my memory of fictional plots from outdated films like Dr. Strangelove,” mentioned Brett Kessler, president of the American Dental Affiliation.
“When authorities officers, like Secretary Kennedy, stand behind the commentary of misinformation and mistrust peer-reviewed analysis it’s injurious to public well being.”
