(Photographed by Melissa Majchrzak / Associated Press)
Staff Writer: Skyler Pereyra
Email: spereyra@umassd.edu
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced plans to tell the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to ban fluoride in drinking water supplies.
From the National Institute of Health, fluoride is a mineral that “inhibits or reverses the initiation and progression of dental caries (tooth decay) and stimulates new bone formation.”
According to the CDC, water fluoridation is “one of 10 great public health interventions of the 20th century,” along with vaccinations, motor-vehicle safety, safer workplaces, the control of infectious diseases, the decline in deaths from heart diseases and strokes, safer and healthier foods, healthier mothers and babies, family planning, and the recognition of tobacco use as a health hazard.
However, RFK Jr.. the current Secretary of The Department of Health and Human Services, believes that “it makes no sense to have it in our water supply,” a sentiment he carried through his 2024 presidential campaign.
The research on fluoride goes back to the early 1900s when dental graduate student Frederick McKay opened a dental practice in Colorado Springs. He noticed large numbers of patients with “brown stains on their teeth.”
Dental researcher Dr. G.V. Black took an interest in McKay’s findings and joined him in Colorado Springs. Working together, they found that the stains “resulted from developmental imperfections in children’s teeth” and were “inexplicably resistant to decay.”
In 1923, McKay traveled to Oakley, Idaho, where parents were concerned about similar brown stains appearing on children’s teeth. He analyzed the water from the newly constructed communal pipe, where he found nothing suspicious, advising the town to use another water source.
Again, McKay traveled to another town—Bauxite, Arkansas—faced with the brown stains, and again he found nothing notable within the water. However, the stains were “nonexistent in another town only five miles away.”
His findings were sent to the Aluminum Company of America’s (ACLOA) chief chemist, H.V. Churchill, who used a more developed method to conduct tests on the water. He discovered “high levels of fluoride” in the water from Bauxite, Arkansas. Astonished by the discovery, he asked for a different sample to re-conduct the test, only to arrive at the same conclusion.
He informed McKay of the discovery and urged him to retest all the other places he had visited to confirm the findings. This spurred many other dental researchers over the next ten years to join McKay in his fluoride research.
By the late 1930s, Dr. H. Trendley Dean and Dr. Elias Elvove of the National Institute of Health created a method “to measure fluoride levels in water with an accuracy of 0.1 parts per million” which they used to discover that“ fluoride levels of up to 1.0 ppm in drinking water did not cause enamel fluorosis [discolored tooth due to unbalanced fluoride intake during childhood] in most people.”
Grand Rapids, Michigan, became the first city to fluoridate its public water supply, resulting in a 60% drop in tooth decay over 11 years.
When asked about the movement of people wanting to remove fluoride from water, Dr. Charlotte W. Lewis, pediatrician and professor at the University of Washington Medicine, pointed to a study published in 2010 that connected early exposure to fluoride to a decrease in IQ in boys.
However, she explains that there are no other studies that point to this conclusion, “and in fact, have shown an opposite effect.”
Not only did RFK Jr. cite that study as a reason for removing fluoride in the water, but he also blamed fluoride for increased risks of “hyperthyroidism to osteoarthritis.” However, Dr. Lewis explained back in November 2024 that connections like these “have all been disproven through robust research.”
Unfortunately, this isn’t RFK. Jr’s first controversial health take. For years, and especially during his short-lived 2024 presidential campaign, Kennedy has pushed anti-vaccine rhetoric.
In July 2024, he said, “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective,” even going as far as telling FOX News that he still believes they can cause autism.
He also believes that Black people have stronger immune systems than white people and “should receive vaccines on a different schedule.”
Despite his new position in the Department of Health and Human Services, RFK. Jr. has no medical education or background. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in American History and Literature from Harvard University, a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Virginia’s School of Law, and a Master of Law from Pace University.
He and many other political figures, with their incorrect medical advice, have downplayed the importance of medical interventions like vaccines. Recently in Texas, a measles outbreak has been reported with over 500 diagnosed and three deaths. Utah has recently announced the first steps to enact a ban on fluoride in water, with Kennedy commenting, “I’m very, very proud of this state for being the first state to ban it, and I hope many more will come.”