Some Republican lawmakers are unsettled by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s calls for states to stop adding fluoride to drinking water — including most of the dentists in Congress, who spoke directly to the additive improving dental health.
Kennedy, who has previously called fluoride a “dangerous neurotoxin,” said he’s planning to tell the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to stop recommending the practice. He is also getting the Trump administration involved at the state level on the matter. After Utah passed a bill in late March banning water fluoridation, Kennedy visited and participated in news conferences, praising state officials as leaders in his Make America Healthy Again movement.
It’s left some Republicans in the unusual position of pushing back against the Trump administration given the decades of evidence that fluoride improves pediatric dental health outcomes.
Rep. Brian Babin of Texas is one of Congress’ four dentists, all of whom are House Republicans. He told NOTUS he largely agrees with Kennedy on his stances about some vaccines and common food additives, but he couldn’t deny the positive effects water fluoridation has had.
“We’ve got decades and decades of proof fluoride, in the right concentration in the water system, keeps kids from having tooth decay,” Babin said. “Any substance in too great of an abundance or concentration is bad for you.”
The Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday that it’s working with the Department of Health and Human Services to review the risks of water fluoridation, citing a study linking fluoride exposure to lower IQs in children. But that research focused on people exposed to water containing more than 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per liter. Currently, the CDC recommends a concentration of only 0.7 milligrams.
Both Reps. Mike Simpson and Paul Gosar, who are also dentists, said they wanted to speak with Kennedy about the matter to understand why he’s pushing the CDC to recommend states to stop fluoridating their water.
“I’ve seen the actual impacts of fluoride. I think what he talks about is over-fluoridation. Too much of anything can cause a problem, and too much fluoride does. But I’ve seen the impact on dental cavities,” Simpson, who represents Idaho, told NOTUS.
Gosar pointed to research showing the positive impacts of 70-plus years of public water fluoridation in the U.S.
“We’ve had such a plethora of problems that were solved by fluoride,” Gosar said. “I want to see all the research.”
Rep. Jeff Van Drew — who sports a tooth-shaped American flag pin on his lapel — said there’s no doubt that fluoride is good for pediatric dental health. But he added that he’s against governments adding any substances to public water on principle, which he acknowledged is “an unusual position” for a former dentist to have.
“I don’t believe it’s harmful for kids as they’re growing up, and does help their teeth. However, philosophically, I am against putting it in everybody’s drinking water, whether you want it or not. I think that should be up to the individual,” Van Drew told NOTUS. “Where does that begin and end? The way the world is right now, we probably could all use a relaxant in the water.”
If the CDC does recommend removing fluoride, it would still be up to states and municipalities to decide whether to follow that recommendation. But such a recommendation would be a reversal for the agency, which has long lauded public water fluoridation as a public health achievement, finding it reduced tooth decay in children and tooth loss in adults.
Among Republicans, there’s some support for Kennedy’s position on fluoride, however.
“I don’t think government should put that stuff in our water,” Rep. Clay Higgins told NOTUS. “There are other ways to take care of our teeth than ingesting arguably harmful chemicals into our bodies, like permanently, from childhood, allegedly with the purpose of purifying the water and strengthening our teeth.”
And many said they’re deferring to state and local officials on the matter. Several non-dentist Republicans NOTUS spoke to said they’d rather let their states and towns in their districts decide whether to follow Kennedy’s advice, including Rep. Blake Moore of Utah, who said he supports his state’s ban, though he said that he ensures his children use fluoride to prevent tooth decay.
“Utah is a freedom-loving state, you know? And this was an issue for that. So I support it, and I’ll make sure my kids use mouthwash so they get their fluoride because I’ll forget otherwise,” Moore told NOTUS. “I can’t really try to promote anything there at the state level. So this is what’s happened, and it’s gonna be, it’s good. Let’s just give it a whirl.”
Other states are also pursuing possible fluoridation bans. After several municipalities in Florida decided to stop adding it to their water supply, lawmakers started pursuing the policy statewide.
Besides the four dentists, though, a few other former medical professionals in Congress said they didn’t understand the supposed dangers of water fluoridation Kennedy’s warning against.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, a former physician who has publicly pressed Kennedy about his previous anti-vaccine activism, told NOTUS outright that the health secretary has “the wrong position” on fluoride.
“It is a mistake to take fluoride out of the water,” Cassidy told NOTUS, pointing to American Dental Association research about the substance reducing the prevalence of cavities in children. “This is what the dentists talk to me about, and I’ve had my ear filled with dentists.”
And Rep. Greg Murphy, a former physician who represents North Carolina, said water fluoridation was “probably a point of moderate disagreement” he had with Kennedy.
“I’m not 100% sold on that. I think the evidence is somewhat a little bit controversial as to the deleterious effects of fluoride. We know that for a fact, it helps prevent caries, dental issues,” Murphy told NOTUS. “I’m open to learning more about it, but at this point, I’m just not sold on the idea.”
—
Emily Kennard is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.