FLUORIDE’S LAST STAND? Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. looks poised to win the battle over fluoride, to the dismay of dentists and oral health advocates, POLITICO’s Danny Nguyen reports.
Florida and Utah banned the cavity-fighting mineral from their drinking water this year, and several other Republican-led states are considering similar measures. Oklahoma has dropped its recommendation that localities fluoridate.
Why it matters: The nearly three-quarters of Americans who drank fluoridated water before Kennedy became HHS secretary is set to plummet.
For Kennedy, who’s long believed drinking fluoride is unhealthy, that’s a win.
“Fluoride’s predominant benefit to teeth comes from topical contact with the outside of the teeth, not from ingestion,” an HHS spokesperson told POLITICO. “There is no need, therefore, to ingest fluoride.”
The impact of the retreat from fluoridation on oral health will reveal whether dentists are correct when they predict a cavity crisis will follow, or whether Kennedy’s view that Americans can get the fluoride they need through toothpaste and mouthwash will bear out.
Drilling down: The CDC has included fluoridation in its list of the 10 greatest public health achievements of the 20th century, citing data that it reduces tooth decay by as much as 70 percent in children and tooth loss by as much as 60 percent in adults.
Kennedy nonetheless believes the case to remove fluoride is urgent because of reports that it could curtail children’s brain development. It’s a position bolstered by a report from the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences — although none of the studies were conducted in the U.S., and the levels of fluoride they examined were higher than what Americans typically consume — and a federal judge’s order in September that the Environmental Protection Agency regulate fluoride in drinking water, citing risks that higher levels could impact intellectual development.
Dentists see it differently.
“This is revving up an antiscience narrative,” said Dr. Brett Kessler, the president of the American Dental Association, the country’s leading dentists’ group. “There are ways to get fluoride in toothpaste, some of the foods we eat, some of the drinks we drink, topical fluoride mouthwashes. … But without fluoridated water, you’re already behind the eight ball because you’ve got vulnerable teeth.”
Original article online at: https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-pulse/2025/07/10/the-fight-over-fluoridation-00445457