The Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said Monday that he plans to gather a working group and, ultimately, change the centers for disease control and prevention to stop recommending to add fluoride.
His comments arrived during a press conference in Utah, which became the first state to ban the fluoride of drinking water systems.
Associated Press was the first to inform Kennedy’s planned changes in the CDC guide.
The CDC currently recommends the use of fluoride to prevent cavities.
If Kennedy, who has been Franco in his support to eliminate water fluoride, directs CDC to change his guide, could lead to more cities and states to eliminate the fluoride from drinking water, a decision that is made at the local level.
“Fluoride should not be in the water,” Kennedy said on Monday.
The Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., arrives before President Donald Trump speaks during an event to announce new rates in the Rosas Garden in the White House, on April 2, 2025, in Washington.
Mark Schiefelbein/AP
But the guide of the CDC on fluoride is not enforceable, and a prohibition of fluoride, if it would survive the legal challenges, ultimately, would need to come from the Environmental Protection Agency.
The EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, also in Utah with Kennedy on Monday, announced that the EPA is also reviewing “new science” on fluoride. The EPA establishes the maximum level of fluoride in the water.
“We are prepared to act based on science,” Zeldin said at the press conference.
The EPA review “will report any possible review to the EPA fluoride drinking water standard,” said a press release, specifically citing a report from the National Toxicology Program, a division administered by the Government.
The August report found a lower intellectual coefficient in children who had higher levels of exposure to fluoride, approximately twice the limit recommended by the level for drinking water, and said that more research is needed to determine if the small doses recommended in the US. UU. They cause damage.
Long Island, NY: Water is poured into a glass of a tap in Long Island, New York, on October 4, 2022. (Photo of Steve Pfost/Newsday RM through Getty Images)
Newsday LLC/Newsday through Getty Images
“Many substances are healthy and beneficial when taken in small doses, but they can cause high dose damage. More research is needed to better understand if there are health risks associated with low fluoride exposures,” the report said.
The study was also summoned in a ruling of a federal judge in September that ordered the EPA to take measures to reduce the potential risk of fluoride.
The American district judge Edward Chen said that more investigations were needed to understand if the typical amounts of water fluoride in the United States were causing a lower intellectual coefficient in children.
“I think we need to apply the warning principle in this country that we should not harm,” Kennedy said on Tuesday. “And it is clearly harming, and compensation is the loss of IQ in children, and we cannot afford that in this country. We need all the brain power we can to handle the challenges of the future.”
In November, shortly before the elections, Kennedy promised that the Trump administration would advise all US water systems to eliminate public water fluoride the first day.
The American Dental Association, which responded to the comments of Kennedy and Zeldin on Tuesday, said that water fluoride was necessary for good oral health and the levels recommended by the United States “does not negatively affect the levels of intellectual coefficient.”
“The growing distrust of credible science, proven by time and based on evidence is discouraging. The myths that fluorid water is harmful and no longer necessary to prevent dental disease is problematic and reminds me of the fictional plots of old films such as Dr. Strangelove,” said Brett Kessler, president of the American Dental Association.
“When government officials, such as Secretary Kennedy, support the comment of erroneous information and peer reviewed, is harmful to public health.”
