Anti-science quack Robert F. Kennedy Jr., head of the Department of Health and Human Services, announced Tuesday that the Food and Drug Administration is taking steps to “remove concentrated ingestible fluoride prescription drug products for children from the market.”
Kennedy said the move is “long overdue,” but dentists say it’s not based in reality and could spike cases of tooth decay in children.
According to Kennedy’s press release, the FDA will conduct a “safety review” of ingestible fluoride tablets and drops by Oct. 31.
“I’m grateful to [FDA] Commissioner [Marty] Makary for his leadership on this vital issue — one that directly safeguards the health and development of our children. This decision brings us one step closer to delivering on President Trump’s promise to Make America Healthy Again,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy has been pushing misinformation about the impacts of fluoride in drinking water for years. During an official cabinet meeting last month, he falsely claimed that there is “a direct inverse correlation between exposure to fluoride and IQ loss, particularly in children.”
But Kennedy was conflating studies that looked at natural exposure to fluoride, not the minimal amounts that are added to drinking water.
In November, before he was even nominated as HHS secretary, Kennedy called for the removal of fluoride from drinking water, which studies have shown increases tooth decay, particularly in children.
If the FDA fully removes ingestible fluoride from the market, it will hurt children in states like Utah, where conspiracy theorists successfully lobbied to ban fluoride from drinking water.
The American Dental Association recommends the addition of the naturally occurring mineral to community water sources to help prevent cavities and tooth decay in children.
“When used as directed or within the context of community water fluoridation programs, fluoride is a safe and effective agent that can be used to prevent and control dental caries,” the ADA fact sheet said.
The ADA also specifically recommends the kind of supplements that Kennedy is trying to ban, especially for children “at high risk for tooth decay and whose primary drinking water has a low fluoride concentration.”
“This is really going to hamper our goal of providing kids with fluoride. It’s ridiculous, and it takes away the choice of parents to allow their children to have better dental health. It doesn’t make scientific sense,” Dr. Meg Lochary, a pediatric dentist in Union County, North Carolina, which banned fluoridated drinking water, told NBC News.
Like fluoride, Kennedy is targeting vaccines, which he falsely claims cause autism.
Kennedy announced that HHS will now require placebo testing for new vaccines, which doctors say is unethical as it would require people potentially exposed to deadly diseases to get a placebo vaccine when an effective vaccine already exists.
“If we have vaccines or treatments that work, it’s wrong to give some research participants nothing,” Seema Shah, professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and director of research ethics at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, said. “There are some exceptions, such as if there is an important scientific reason. For example, some trials of pain medication use placebos because there is a high placebo response.”
In other words, Shah said, “people tend to feel better even if they get a sugar pill. Another exception is when it’s not too risky to give people nothing. But for many diseases, scientists already know how to measure if the vaccine is giving the immune system the information it needs to fight the disease, and there is no need to use a placebo injection.”
It’s truly insane that our health and wellbeing is being dictated by a brain worm-addled conspiracy theorist who swims in sewage water for fun. I guess we don’t need teeth in Trump’s America.
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