Robert F. Kennedy Jr. put the decades-old debate over water fluoridation back on the table. As President-elect Donald Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, she may become the most powerful public health figure in the United States who believes we should get fluoride out of our water. Currently, it is up to municipalities to determine their own water fluoride dosage — Most of them set around 0.7 mg per liter of water — So it’s unclear whether a federal agency in the United States can change course on water fluoridation. About 63 percent of Americans have fluoridated water. Millions of Americans also drink water that naturally contains even higher levels of fluoride.
The video explains how this renewed focus on water fluoridation is happening at a time when new science is emerging on the subject. Historically, water fluoridation has worked wonders in combating tooth decay, primarily in children. But scientists are still investigating whether it has the same effect today, given how widespread topical fluoride and regular dental care are now.
There is a growing scientific debate about whether the doses we are consuming in the United States are safe for brain development.
Part of the difficulty with the science on fluoride is that when it comes to studying the risks of fluoride, there have never been double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled studies—the gold standard in science for proving causation. All the studies we mention in the video are observational. This lack of studies is common in epidemiology when researching something that may be harmful to some degree. But surprisingly, no such trial has ever been conducted on the benefits of water fluoridation. However, the University of North Carolina is currently conducting the first such trial Water fluoridation facility.
It’s worth noting that this video talks about studies that look at the link between childhood IQ and high fluoride levels. Such studies are done at the population level — so, IQ is averaged across a large group. IQ studies are problematic in some situations. But one expert I spoke with explained why it’s epidemiologists’ best tool for doing this kind of research.
“Historically, there have been concerns about how IQ is racially biased,” Bruce Lanphear, a professor of health sciences at Simon Fraser University, told me. “But actually, of all the different measures we use of brain function, IQ is probably the best one we use. Unlike some behavioral scores … which are usually based on parent reports. And those are valuable and they have been validated. But IQ is not only verified, it has been shown to work consistently, at least within homogenous groups.”
