Red states are banning the tooth-protecting mineral, while blue state skeptics aren’t budging.
Dentists are proving no match for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the battle over fluoride.
Utah and Florida have this year banned the cavity-fighting mineral from drinking water and several other Republican-led states are considering it. Oklahoma has dropped its recommendation that localities fluoridate. Net effect: The nearly three-quarters of Americans who drank fluoridated water before Kennedy became secretary of Health and Human Services 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 the retreat from fluoridation has on oral health will show whether dentists are right, that a cavity crisis will follow, or whether Kennedy’s view, that Americans can get the fluoride they need in toothpaste and mouthwash, will bear out.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an agency within HHS, has held out fluoridation as one 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.