RFK Jr. says a Trump White House would immediately push to remove fluoride from water
nbcnews.com
Summary
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that a Trump administration would prioritize removing fluoride from public water systems, a position at odds with major health organizations like the CDC, the American Dental Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, all of which endorse water fluoridation as safe and beneficial for dental health.
Despite Kennedy’s controversial stance on health and environmental issues, which includes previously debunked claims linking vaccines to autism, Trump has praised his passion, stating that Kennedy would have significant freedom to influence health policy if Trump were elected.
Roe v Wade: "This should be decided by the states!"
Fluoride in water: "This should be decided by the federal government!"
???
They're proposing to ban vaccines too, and they're not mentioning particular vaccines, just "vaccines". So no healthcare for trans people or pregnant women, and no vaccines. It's only a matter of time before someone convinces them antibiotics are the devil's work.
I mean...
At this point let's just tell them we forbid them from drinking arsenic because, even though it massively increases testosterone production, all liberal science says most humans aren't strong enough to handle it.
Fucking let moron nature take its course.
Except they'll take a lot of us with them. We need herd immunity, clean air and water, safe roads. They're going to fuck us all with their idiocy.
You can have safety, or you can have improvement via evolution.
You can't have both.
You can actually, evolution is driven by selective reproduction, not selective survival. Yes, reproduction is usually tied to survival, but natural selection would still work even if everyone always lived to 80.
It would not select for traits useful for survival though, it would most likely select for traits that get you laid.
This requires us to prevent people from reproducing, we have to pick and choose who can breed.
Gonna put that in the "probably not a great idea" category.
You have seen Idiocracy, yes? About selective reproduction.
I've seen the kind of people that reproduce well. Most of them are both immoral and not very smart.
My cousins' parents are a good exception, though. They are exactly the kind of people that should have children, and their daughters too. My parents, on the contrary, were the kind of people about whom I'd never say that. It's a pure miracle I've turned out at least kinda similar to a human.
On the contrary, the best people I know personally of my generation either have problems they haven't yet solved or are gay.
OK, then thinking about myself, I actually think I'd not be that bad of a parent, in case one of those strange creatures likes me enough, but it would be really hard.
They'd probably start putting it in the water.
Antibiotics are proof of evolution, since the various microorganisms create resistances to vaccines.
Nothing says pro life like returning to 18th century childhood mortality rates 😎
Antibiotics shouldn't be used as easily as people think, though. Because, ahem, antibiotic resistance is a thing.
It's a responsible position to only use antibiotics when you really need it. Not when you have cold. EDIT: just in case, by cold I mean cold, not covid
That's the kind of responsible and sensible advice the Republicans would never give. It requires too much nuance.
I don't think I've heard anything responsible and sensible from politicians with chances to succeed in a two party system.
Anti-what? Ohhh you mean Satan Pills.
Breaking: Trump vows to repeal Ohm's Law: "States should handle resistance at the local level."
That’s because they don’t actually have principles.
Not putting fluoride in the water isn't the same as prohibiting it. If you want to drink it or not simply becomes optional, rather than mandatory. Give people a choice to make with their healthcare provider, otherwise you're forcing medicine down peoples throat.
https://pharmacy.amazon.com/Sodium-Fluoride-Chewable-Tablet/dp/B084BTB8TY?
Violating your principals for some undetectable flouride in the water is a small price to pay for an entire area of people to receive better dental prospects.
Flip this round. You still have a choice, buy bottled water.
Oh stfu
Nobody is forcing you to drink tap water.
Fluoride isn't medicine.
Don't we have real problems to solve? Why are Republicans always making up new shit?
More like rehashing old shit. Vaccines are pretty settled science as well.
Because Democrats tend to agree with reality, so if republicans want to oppose them they must insist that reality isn't true.
Distraction 101. If we’re too busy fighting about stuff like this, we won’t come after them for the stuff they absolutely do not want to address. More often than not, the other side doesn’t really want to do the hard work either, so it’s easy to just fight with them about the meaningless shit and get credit for being the reasonable ones. Meanwhile the homeless camps get larger, the health care gets more expensive, the one income family with a pension for retirement becomes a two income family juggling multiple part time jobs with no benefits, higher education becomes something that traps you in a lifetime of loan debt, and we spend billions to elect people who will address none of it.
Pick up a fiddle and enjoy the view of Rome.
Sometimes I hope I’ll see a starship Enterprise, but it’s looking more like Bell riots and Eugenics wars for the rest of my lifetime.
Vote blue and punch a nazi whenever you can, be the change you want to see.
Mental health.
Great way to send a lot of business to dentists.
A Pynchon-level conspiracy. I suspect we’ll be seeing some more dentist-on-trampoline accidents.
where are brain worms when you need them to finish the job
starved to death.
It's like a joke unto itself. A brain worm couldn't survive in RFK's brain.
Poisoned by his thoughts
How about making sure 100% of US residents have access to clean, safe tap water first? Eliminate lead and forever chemicals. I don't feel strongly about fluoride, I do feel strongly you should be able to drink water from your kitchen sink without having to worry.
Wow are you a commie? Tap water should only contain flammable gas from nearby fracking plants! Yeehaw
That’s how you know what Freedom^TM^ tastes like!
It tastes like burning.
There actually is a huge push to replace ALL lead service lines in the next few years. Also the EPA has extra funding for treatment of "emerging contaminants" which includes PFAS. Republicans are trying (and succeding) to reduce this funding.
See that would require 100% of Americans to be rich enough for these chucklefucks to care about us.
We don't have it in Quebec, we have more dental health issues on average than in Ontario (our neighbors)
That's interesting. I thought it was more or less universal. Any idea why?
It was never introduced on a large scale to begin with (Montreal never did it for example) and there's a group that helps citizens fight it where it's still done (5 cities still do it).
One of their main argument is that the studies that most cities refer to to defend it date from the 60s/70s and their methodology was so so, more recent research don't seem to find as much of a difference if socio-economic criterias are taken into consideration (but again, Quebec as a whole vs any other province as a whole should cover that, Quebec is richer than New-Brunswick yet kids have more cavities in Quebec) and there's the environmental question considering that about 1% of the water is used as drinking water, it's 99% of the fluoride being wasted.
Sure ok. I appreciate you taking the time to answer.
The issues you've mentioned apply generally to fluoridation anywhere. It sounds like the reason why it's not present in Quebec is that the resistance was better organised.
There's fluoride in the water here in regional Western Australia, but I fear that's probably the least concerning additive. I've never really thought much about it but apparently there's chlorine in the tap water, you can smell it from time to time. If you think about it, things love to live in water and keeping it free of things like cholera must take some doing.
Yeah chlorine is everywhere because it's used to make the water safe to drink, without it I hope you have a good, uncontaminated well, otherwise you can't drink tap water!
Yeah resistance is better organized to stop it since the 90s, but I think adoption didn't happen as much back in the day because of the very conservative government in place when it became normalized all over Canada (we call that period of Quebec's history the great darkness for a reason!)
Sounds like the residents of Quebec just have shitty dental hygiene, and I suspect the same in Ontario. It's just that the residents of Ontario are having their teeth taken care of by the government, because they can't do it themselves.
The same thing is seen all over the world when comparing places with and without fluoridation so I guess people in general have shitty dental hygiene so you can cut the holier than thou attitude.
Yea, small children just need to pull themselves up by the bootstraps!
What year is this? This was a scare back in the 1970.
Un-fortify the wheat now!
/s
That's about the time the worm ate through his brain and stopped any further thinking.
It already starved to death.
"Precious bodily fluids..."
"Immediately" means a tweet or Truth Social post by Trump that is so vague no one under him knows exactly what they're supposed to do to enact his order.
And then right back to Day 1 dictatorial stuff like imprisoning political opponents and the press.
Maybe it's the brain worm talking because the fluorine would kill it?
This made me laugh so hard, I spit my drink all over my desk. Well played, sir.
My precious bodily fluids ! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xQyf3QgRP-c
What fucking year is this? And while he's at it, that horses's ass can get tinfoil hats into circulation to protect against
God damn it, will all these fossils with their lead poisoned brains just die already?
I used to respect the hell outta my boss. Chief engineer, man can fix and diagnose just about anything. Then he started talking about this guy and how great he is... Like how can someone be so smart yet so so dumb? How can you not apply the same critical thinking into politics as you do into your work? Where does the disconnect come in?
Let’s bring back leaded gasoline and asbestos too!!
Is fluoride the new Frog-engayening agent? 🐸
Flouride makes teeth white. White light passing through a prism makes a rainbow. Therefore, fluoride makes my teeth gay.
RFK, Antivax shit head moron.
Wait what? Oh, for a second I thought he was going to remove Florida.
Reasonable confusion!
Executive Order #1: No American shall receive more than ONE SCOOP of ice cream at a time, EXCEPT the Chief Executive.
Ignore that buzzing noise.
It's just the sound of 200,000 dentists rubbing their hands together at the thought of all the extra money they're going to make.
A lot of people don’t drink tap water so I don’t think there would be much of a surge
The vast majority of Americans drink tap water.
Make Cavities Great Again
The real issues! /s
Welp, that explains the parasites.
Ah yes, RFKJR, the original cavity creep.
The old John Birch society hated fluoride too. So much so, that Barry Goldwater took up the cause when he ran against JFK. Of course, he lost. Now they try to dress it up with junk science and it's RFK and Trump.
I guess I didn't need teeth anyway
Such an ignorant man
In the universe of bad and crazy things that brain worm addled RFK jr. would do, this is one of the least bad and crazy.
It's quite bad and crazy though. fluoridated water helps to protect people's teeth, and all you need to do is drink tap water. This means that anyone with access to tap water will get at least some basic protection against tooth decay and all the health problems that stem from that.
Without fluoridated water, the people who do not have access to regular dental care (including toothbrushes and toothpaste) will be the ones who suffer the most. Those are the people who will end up in emergency rooms with infections, heart disease, etc. and will also not be able to pay the hospital bill, thus not only adding stress to already stretched thin emergency rooms, but also overall creating a larger financial burden on the industry.
Something something an ounce of prevention and all....
Not the lead. The fluoride!
PRECIOUS
BODILY
FLUIDS!
Isn't this a state and municipality decision?
Personally I am in favor of removing floyride from water. I think it's stupid.
But I am fine with replacing that with free fluoride toothpaste for children.
Either way that is not a federal decision to make.
Literally why?? It's one of the most effective things we can do for the vast majority of our population. And every expert thinks it's a good idea. Some random bozo thinking it's "stupid" is fucking stupid, but apparently you're in good company with Kennedy here lol
Did you read the second part of my comment? Just how much water do kids drink these days? How much more effective is using fluoride AND developing good brushing habits?
The latest studies show a rise in flourosis, and a decline in effectiveness since the widespread use of fluoride toothpaste.
It seems crazy to me to add a chemical to water that had no dose control and concentrates upon boiling if there are better options.
WTF kind of question/argument is this?
"Kids these days, amirite? They don't drink any water but thank god they can be trusted to have good brushing habits!"
Along with a decline in having teeth rot and fall out, damn what a tough choice.
That isn't a decline in effectiveness you bozo.
You realize we add literal chlorine to water, right? Not some scary chemical with "chloride blah blah blah" in the name, actual chlorine. It only seems crazy to you because you're making an uninformed opinion based on your gut feeling instead of trusting experts and people who actually studied and work with water treatment plants.
You literally are disagreeing with decades of evidence that it helps populations and especially children, disagreeing with experts in the field, and agreeing with fucking RFK, Jr. Maybe take a second to pause and evaluate whether your initial, uneducated emotional response should have any fucking weight on this decision.
Bozo? So are we having a discussion or what? Do you just want to argue about how you feel and have a slapfight or are you willing to actually discuss this? Uneducated indeed.
Yes, Kids these days. How much water do kids drink? How much TAP water do kids drink?
Except NO. That is what I am telling you. The studies that have been done have discovered that the effectiveness we saw in the 1950's is not the same as today. With the rise of Fluoride in toothpaste the differences are negligible.
Do you know the difference between Chlorine and Flouride? Chlorine is an evaporating compound. Don't want chlorine in your water, let it sit for a day. Boil it.
Fluoride does not evaporate. It concentrates.
Nope. I am willing to look at and understand current studies and evidence. Are you?
I hate that this stance appears to agree with RFK Jr. He is an idiot. I said it was a municipality issue, not a federal issue. I said I would support flouride in toothpaste and a program to assist with that. I also can agree that a municipality may find it necessary to fluoridate their water if dental care and oral hygiene is unavailable due to various factors like poverty, remoteness, cost effectiveness etc. But in the end it would ALWAYS be better to prescribe the treatment in measured amounts, instead of adding it to the water. That is why I think it is stupid and we need to move beyond it.
Lol what a great discussion and not just arguing about "how you feel"
What the actual fuck is your point here? All of my friends' kids drink mostly from the tap, or make food with water from the tap. Do you think children are only drinking cans of soda and Lunchables??
Literally not true, studies still show better outcomes for cities that add fluoride. A Canadian province that doesn't add fluoride has more cavities and issues than a neighboring province that does.
The mild fluorosis that is "risked" by adding fluoride is such a mild condition compared to teeth loss, weaker adult teeth, and cavities while growing up.
Being willing to understand doesn't magically convey the ability to understand. You sound like nurses that become anti-vax and think they know more about medicine since they had to memorize unrelated facts and know how to inject a needle.
It already is, fluoridization is not federally mandated. RFK is talking about federally banning it.
So you agree it's better to add it to the water until literally every person in the US has health/dental care and free fluoride treatments? I hope you're arguing for those, too, instead of just whining about how some utopian alternative that we are nowhere near to having would be better.
So explain to me how Denmark has the best DMFT index score (decayed, missing, or filled teeth), yet they do not add fluoride to their water.
Or Kuopio Finland, that was the only city in Finland that fluoridated then stopped.
Again, better health care, better outcomes. Putting a poison that becomes a random dose depending on age, consumption, and concentration into water is stupid. You wont change my mind. It may be a necessary evil to get to better care, but we should be able to stop doing that.
And yes, I don't know any kids who actually are willing to drink tap water anymore. Its all bottled, brita, or filtered these days.
Your response to me saying that adding fluoride is best until the US has complete and free dental healthcare was to mention two European countries with with better healthcare than the US. So I'll repeat myself since you can't read:
If you live in the US then it should be obvious what will provide the best outcomes, since those other measures aren't in fucking place here.
It's not a poison, this type of bullshit fear-mongering just highlights how hollow your arguments are. You're arguing that the delivery method of fluoride is wrong, and then you call it a poison. Stop taking cues from anti-vaxxers.
It's not an evil, just because there's a hypothetical better way doesn't mean this way is bad. It provably doesn't have worse outcomes! How the fuck can it be evil? All your links just show it has "negligible effects" if fluoride is provided another way, none of them show negative effects.
Than you either don't live in America or you live in a much more well-off area then me. Over half of Americans drink tap water, and more than that cook with the water.
Brita and other filters don't remove fluoride from water, so drinking filtered tap water doesn't affect adding fluoride to the water.
If you do not think fluoride is a poison you are out of your mind. You didnt seem to understand how chlorine worked, so I guess its par for the course. There are 188 superfund sites in the US to clean up.... FLUORIDE. There are even communities that have to remove it from their drinking water. There are strict limits on the ppm in water, so you think everyone is getting the same dose by adding it?
I gave two examples, you want me to write a damn paper? There are PLENTY MORE. The study in the UK came to the same conclusion. But no matter what I say, you are going argue. True Brita basics do not remove flouride.
And yes I am suggesting, the WHOLE FUCKING TIME, that the US can do better. That this stop gap is stupid, because of the reasons I gave. Why do you want to argue this shit?
The examples of negatives are the deaths that occurred in Alaska, and the injuries in Utah due to human error. Those are rare though. Chronic ingestion of fluoride in large amounts interferes with bone formation. But then there is the study that prompted this discussion, which is interesting, but it needs more review. I looked through the 300 pages and the summary, and I am not convinced.
We are not far apart on this: I am not against fluoride. I am just not hugely in favor of adding it to the water supply if we don't have to. Ingestion is not the same as oral application. A person drinking black tea is already getting decent amount of fluoride. Should their water also be fluoridated? Looking at other countries that do not need to do this is something to strive for.
Honestly there have been studies linking fluoride to lower intelligence and there are many studies stating that it doesn't really make a difference in dental health. If you're brushing your teeth properly you'll be fine.
Most of Europe does the put it in their water and they're fine.
Edit: I say this as someone who absolutely does not want trump or rfk dealing with any of this. Even a broken racist worm ridden clock can be right once in a while
You can find studies saying anything you want if you look. Find a meta-analysis and see what it says about all the studies together.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3491930/
Yes, high concentrations of anything aren't good for you. That study found a negative effect at comparatively high levels, but did not quantify any safe level, let alone conclude the safe level is zero.
Based on known performance in areas with lower fluoridation (≤1 mg/L), it would suggest there is a safe limit that can improve dental health without neurotoxicity.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/04/fluoridation-water-epa-risk-assessement
Even a broken clock is right two times a day.
You know, I just love how no one is addressing why they think this is a bad idea with facts, they just rush to insult him. If this doesn't prove how toxic of a political climate we're in right now, I don't know what will.
The facts are presented and linked in the article.
Just read the article. The fact are right there backed by science and major health orgs.
Im JuSt AsKiNg QuEsTiOnS
Ok.