Anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will likely become a health czar in Donald Trump’s incoming administration—at least until he’s inevitably fired. Nevertheless, Kennedy has promised to not only investigate vaccines but also get rid of fluoride in our drinking water.
“We don’t need fluoride in our water,” he told NPR on Wednesday.
Kennedy unveiled this plan in a Nov. 2 post on X, writing, “On January 20, the Trump White House will advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water.”
But this isn’t just the statement from one of Trump’s allied conspiracy cranks. Trump himself is on board with the idea.
“Well, I haven’t talked to [Kennedy] about it yet, but it sounds okay to me. You know, it’s possible,” Trump told NBC News’ Dasha Burns.
Adding fluoride to water has helped reduce cavities and tooth decay in children and adults, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That saves families money on dental care. And the vast majority of research shows very little evidence of anything besides benefits for children, though there may be some risks for pregnant women of ingesting too much fluoride.
The World Health Organization, American Dental Association, the American Medical Association, and others have long supported the practice.
Removing fluoride from public water carries real risks.
Calgary, Canada, has a long history of fights around fluoridation. The city stopped adding fluoride to water in 2011, and in 2019, pediatric specialist Dr. Cora Constantinescu told the city council that, since 2011, “dental infections that need to be treated by IV antibiotics have increased by 700 per cent at the Alberta Children’s Hospital. Half of those infections are in children under five,” according to CBC. Constantinescu’s findings have since been backed up with new research.
Kennedy’s designs to make the country healthy by attacking vaccines and kids’ teeth has a good chance of gaining traction with the Republican Party. After all, Republicans lack a health care plan. And Vice President-elect JD Vance offered up repealing the Affordable Care Act during the campaign—with nothing to replace it. Of course, most Americans have a favorable view of the ACA, according to polling from KFF, which covers health news.
All of this calls back to a short clip of Brig. Gen. Jack Ripper from “Dr. Strangelove,” who called “fluoridation” a “dangerous community plot.”
Welcome to Trump 2.0.
