Well being and Human Companies Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stated on Monday he plans to assemble a process drive and in the end change the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention’s steerage 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 consuming water techniques.
The Related Press was the primary to report Kennedy’s supposed modifications to the CDC steerage.
The CDC presently recommends using fluoride to stop cavities.
If Kennedy, who has been outspoken in his assist for eradicating fluoride from water, directs the CDC to alter its steerage, it might result in extra cities and states eradicating fluoride from consuming water, a call that is made on the native stage.
“Fluoride shouldn’t be within the water,” Kennedy stated 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 steerage on fluoride shouldn’t be enforceable, and a ban on fluoride, ought to it survive authorized challenges, would in the end want to come back 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 primarily based on the science,” Zeldin stated on the press convention.
The assessment by EPA will “inform any potential revisions to EPA’s fluoride consuming water customary,” a press launch stated, particularly citing a report from the Nationwide Toxicology Program, a government-run division.
The August report discovered decrease IQ in kids who had increased ranges of fluoride publicity — about twice the extent beneficial restrict for U.S. consuming water — and stated extra analysis is required to find out if the small doses beneficial 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 through Getty Photos)
Newsday Llc/Newsday through Getty Photos
“Many substances are wholesome and useful when taken in small doses however might trigger hurt at excessive doses. Extra analysis is required to raised perceive if there are well being dangers related to low fluoride exposures,” the report stated.
The examine was additionally cited in a federal choose’s ruling in September that ordered the EPA to take steps to decrease the potential threat of fluoride.
U.S. District Choose Edward Chen stated extra analysis was wanted to grasp if the everyday quantities of fluoride within the water within the U.S. have been inflicting decrease IQ in children.
“I feel we have to apply the cautionary precept on this nation that we should always do no hurt,” Kennedy stated Tuesday. “And it clearly is doing hurt, and the tradeoff is IQ loss in children, and we will not afford that on this nation. We want all of the mind energy that we are able to 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 techniques to take away fluoride from public water on day one.
The American Dental Affiliation, responding to Kennedy and Zeldin’s feedback Tuesday, stated fluoride in water was essential for good oral well being and at U.S.-recommended ranges “doesn’t negatively impression IQ ranges.”
“The rising mistrust of credible, time-tested, evidence-based science is disheartening. The myths that fluoridated water is dangerous and not essential to stop dental illness is troublesome and jogs my memory of fictional plots from outdated motion pictures like Dr. Strangelove,” stated 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.”