RFK Jr wants to pull fluoride from US tap water due to brain damage fears – what does science say?

Robert F Kennedy Jr is calling for the removal of fluoride from America’s water supply, declaring it his first act as an official in a possible Trump administration. 

Reports that the controversial former presidential candidate may be tapped for a Trump White House position have been floating around for weeks, and RFK tweeted that if appointed, he would ‘advise all US water systems to remove fluoride from public water.’

In a post on X, Kennedy, a staunch anti-vaxxer, claimed fluoride causes bone cancer, IQ loss and neurodevelopmental disorders. 

Adding fluoride to water has been touted as a great public health achievement, but doubt over its benefits and concerns of its health impact have been on the rise.  

Water fluoridation is standard national policy in the US, England and Canada, but other developed countries such Germany, Sweden, Scotland and Switzerland have discontinued it, arguing people now get enough fluoride through other sources, like toothpaste and mouthwash. 

And earlier this year, a US federal judge ruled the EPA should reevaluate national fluoride regulations based on a study performed by a federal organization that provided evidence ‘with moderate confidence’ that fluoride was linked to lower IQ in children.

Still, Dr Paul Offit, a physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told NPR that Kennedy’s claims are misleading. 

Dr Offit said: ‘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 that tweet’.

Other health authorities side with Offit, listing water fluoridation as one of the top 10 public health achievements of the 20th century. 

The NIH says it helps to prevent cavities, stave off illnesses and avoid hundreds of millions of dollars in associated medical costs for Americans.

Much of the literature around water fluoridation, which began in the US in 1944, shows the practice is safe. 

Since then, the government has moved to fluoridate most public supplies, meaning roughly 72 percent of Americans that use public water supplies drink water with fluoride added to it. 

The element makes teeth more resistant to substances that can wear down enamel – like citrus, sugary foods and carbonated beverages – which thin and weaken teeth and make them more sensitive. 

This, in turn, prevents cavities and other dental infections.  

Since national fluoridation came around, rates of dental problems in children have declined, and the program is praised by dentists. 

For nearly as long though, critics have been raising concerns about the safety of fluoride. 

In his November 2nd post on X, Kennedy said: ‘Fluoride is an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease.’ 

He then linked to a video from the anti-vaccine advocate Del Bigtree.

It’s not clear if Trump supports this plan, and he has yet to publicly state if he would give Kennedy a position in his administration if he were to win. 

However, the former president did say in a phone call with NBC: ‘Well, I haven’t talked to him about it yet, but it sounds OK to me.’ 

But, Dr Offit told NPR: ‘Robert F Kennedy Jr is a science denialist. He makes up his own scientific truths and ignores the actual truth.’

The US started adding fluoride to their tap water in the 1940’s. Roughly 72 percent of Americans that use public utilities get fluorinated drinking water

Fluoride is the active ingredient in most toothpastes, and 13million children participate in fluoride mouth rinse programs, which has students rinse their mouths with a sodium fluoride mouth wash during the school day, according to the NIH. 

In 2015, the US Department of Health and Human Services Agency reviewed the levels of fluoride added to water and decided to standardize the national recommendation. 

Older recommendations had allowed different concentrations based on the local air temperature, but the 2015 update set the limit at 0.7 mg of fluoride per liter of water.  

This re-evaluation didn’t come about because of concerns about health impacts, however, but instead it was meant to address concerns that higher levels of fluoride could cause white patches to develop on teeth. 

But critics point to other countries that have eliminated the substance from their water supply. 

Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden have discontinued fluoride plans in favor of other national dental programs. They have not banned fluoride outright, and in Germany, there is a history of adding fluoride to salt.

Opponents of fluoridation note that adding it to water might have been necessary for people in the 1900s who didn’t have access to fluoride in dental products, but that in the modern world, people get enough fluoride already – and excess exposure could be detrimental

Most recently, in the US, a study from the National Toxicology Program found there was a link between high levels of fluoride exposure and lower IQ. 

The levels of fluoride they included in the study were two times higher than the federal limit for drinking water.

The authors wrote this didn’t prove definitively that fluoride causes lower IQ, and noted their study just establishes a pattern between the two. 

The authors said: ‘Many substances are healthy and beneficial when taken in small doses but may cause harm at high doses. More research is needed to better understand if there are health risks associated with low fluoride exposures.’

Still, federal judge Edward Chen found the evidence from the study compelling enough to issue an order asking the EPA to regulate drinking water. He specifically asked 

In response to Jude Chen’s ruling, the American Dental Association issued a staunch support of fluoridation. 

It read: ‘The key takeaway for the public and public health community from this ruling is that it does not conclude with any certainty that fluoridated water is injurious to public health.’