WASHINGTON — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. mentioned Saturday {that a} Trump administration would, on its first day, “advise all U.S. water programs to take away fluoride from public water.”
Kennedy cited linked fluoride to numerous sicknesses, regardless of main medical associations supporting water fluoridation, which they are saying is secure and a profit to public well being.
“President @realDonaldTrump and First Lady @MELANIATRUMP need to Make America Healthy Again,” the previous Democratic presidential hopeful wrote in a submit to X, tagging Michael Connett, an legal professional who has led litigation that opposed the fluoridation of public consuming water.
Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic who has a historical past of pushing conspiracy theories, is primed to play a key position in a future Trump administration’s well being coverage. Since dropping out of the presidential race and endorsing Trump, Kennedy has steadily appeared on the marketing campaign path stumping for the previous president, and Trump mentioned at a rally this week that if he’s elected, Kennedy is “going to work on well being and girls’s well being.”
Trump has embraced Kennedy. In an occasion in Arizona earlier this week, the previous president mentioned that Kennedy “can do something he desires” in a possible Trump administration.
“He actually desires to with the pesticides and the, you realize, all of the various things. I mentioned, ‘He can do it. He can do something he desires.’ He desires to take a look at the vaccines. He desires —all the things. I believe it’s nice. I believe it’s nice,” Trump had mentioned.
In late October, Trump mentioned that having Kennedy as an ally “is such an ideal honor,” including that he would let Kennedy “go wild on well being.”
“I’m going to let him go wild on well being. I’m going to let him go wild on the meals. I’m going to let him go wild on medicines,” Trump had mentioned.
Kennedy, a former unbiased presidential candidate, has touted broadly debunked theories linking vaccines and autism. He additionally beforehand mentioned that he would help a nationwide ban on abortion after three months of being pregnant, earlier than shortly strolling again his feedback.
When reached for touch upon Kennedy’s proposal, Trump marketing campaign senior adviser Danielle Alvarez didn’t decide to backing the plan.
“While President Trump has acquired a wide range of coverage concepts, he’s targeted on Tuesday’s election,” Alvarez mentioned in an announcement.
Major public well being teams such because the American Dental Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention help water fluoridation, citing research displaying that the mineral helps combat cavities. Health teams additionally emphasize that the apply is secure.
“Water fluoridation is an equitable and cheap means to make sure that prevention of dental illness reaches everybody in a group,” the American Academy of Pediatrics’ web site says.
The academy’s Campaign for Dental Health additionally says on its web site that “there is no such thing as a scientifically legitimate proof to point out that fluoride causes most cancers, kidney illness, or different problems.”
Fluoride helps make tooth “stronger and extra immune to decay,” in keeping with the CDC’s web site, and consuming fluoridated water “reduces cavities by about 25% in youngsters and adults.”
“Documented dangers of group water fluoridation are restricted to dental fluorosis, a change in dental enamel that’s beauty in its most typical kind. Changes vary from barely seen lacy white markings in milder instances to pitting of the tooth within the uncommon, extreme kind,” the CDC’s web site says, noting that almost all dental fluorosis seen within the U.S. at this time is “of the mildest kind.”
Similarly, the American Dental Association says on its web site that water fluoridation is “secure and efficient.”
“Throughout greater than 70 years of analysis and sensible expertise, the overwhelming weight of credible scientific proof has persistently indicated that fluoridation of group water provides is secure,” says a reality sheet on the affiliation’s web site.
Water fluoridation will not be ubiquitous, and the CDC doesn’t mandate fluoridation packages. Some cities have labored to finish public water fluoridation packages as teams argue that it ought to be as much as them to determine whether or not they need fluoride in public water provides.