WASHINGTON – Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took another swipe at fluoride, saying the chemical used to protect teeth is making Americans’stupider’ as he touted his plan to reduce its presence in the country’s drinking water.
“The more you get, the stupider you are, and we need smart kids and healthy kids in this country,” he said during a cabinet meeting with President Donald Trump on April 30.
Kennedy praised Utah for being the first state to prohibit local governments from adding fluoride to public water systems, and stated that he is working to “change the federal fluoride regulations to change the recommendations.”
Scientists and dental health organizations have warned that Kennedy’s plan is detrimental to public health. The health secretary has stated that he will instruct the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to stop recommending that cities and states add fluoride to public water systems. The law does not require the addition of fluoride to water, a process known as fluoridation.
Citing a controversial study
In his remarks, Kennedy cited a study by the National Toxicity Program, an arm of the National Institutes of Health, that found a “direct inverse correlation between fluoride exposure and low IQ in children.”
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, as well as the American Dental Association, criticized Kennedy’s study for lack of statistical rigor and other methodological flaws.
The use of fluoride in the United States has been a successful public health initiative for reducing dental cavities and improving overall oral health since 1945, according to the National Institutes of Health.
However, the agency acknowledged that pregnant women and children may be consuming more fluoride than is safe from a variety of sources, including “treated public water, water-added foods and beverages, teas, toothpaste, floss, and mouthwash.”
Kennedy, who blamed the food industry’s additives for the country’s “chronic health epidemic,” also announced plans to ban nine petroleum-based synthetic dyes within two years.
He stated that he was working to remove sodas and candy from the food stamp program. He has linked the dyes to a variety of neurological disorders, including ADHD among children.