Michael Schulzen
Appearances
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
This starts in the US in the early 20th century, largely from kind of incidental observations, which is that people drinking water with naturally occurring levels of fluoride seem to have some lower rates of tooth decay.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
And by the 1940s, there were some public health researchers or some dental researchers who came to think that it seemed like the evidence was actually fairly strong, that there was something about the exposure of teeth to a little bit of added fluoride that could help to slow or prevent the effects of tooth decay.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
So you start to see municipalities in the 1940s doing this. Wisconsin is a leader. Michigan is a leader. And some of the initial evidence that comes back from some of these interventions suggests that it's been really helpful. It's really helping to reduce rates of tooth decay, especially in children, and to improve oral health in these communities.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
There's a specific story that I have been fascinated by for a long time, which is the story of Stevens Point, Wisconsin in the 1940s, where there was debate in the community about whether or not to add fluoride to the water. This was this exciting new possible intervention. Some local citizens felt some concerns about it.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
They were worried that fluoride could be poisonous, that it could have some toxic effects, and they pushed back. and essentially were pushing for a referendum, seemed to have gotten the city council to stop, and then in secret, the city council decided to add fluoride to the water anyway, and did so before that process had finished.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
And so some of the specific concerns that those people were raising about toxicity may not have borne out, right? But at the same time, if they were feeling like there was something about fluoride that was conspiratorial, in that case, they were correct, right? Elected officials in their community were going behind their back to do something that they had concerns about.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
You know, it becomes this kind of issue that a lot of different groups that have some deep distrust in public health or some deep distrust in government more broadly can kind of express some of those anxieties through or come to see through that lens, come to see this as being a threatening or dangerous intervention.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
The John Birch Society, the kind of right-wing organization, famously takes up fluoride as one cause. There are concerns about fluoride being in some ways a communist plot related to brain control. If you were to try to design something that would become a locus of of these fears. You almost couldn't do it better. It's invisible. It's in the water. It comes out of your tap.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
It's very difficult to avoid. If you don't trust the people who are making that decision on your behalf, this is a way that their decision-making is coming directly into your home, directly into the stuff that you're putting in your body. And fluoride has, over the years, inspired a tremendous amount of fear and concern.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
So, you know, I think one piece of context that's important to understand here is that, like many things, at higher doses, fluoride is toxic, right? And I don't think that that's been a controversial point during this period. The question is whether the much, much lower doses of fluoride that are appearing in water actually have some effect.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
During this period, going into the 1980s and 1990s, you have small numbers of scientists who express some concerns about potentially toxic effects from fluoride. But this is really by no means anywhere near even a consensus or non-fringe position during this period. In the 1980s, there's some people at EPA who raised some questions about fluoridation.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
And then in the 1990s, you start to see more research coming, in particular from China and India, looking at communities that have high naturally occurring fluoridation. levels of fluoride in their water and starting to detect some potential link between higher levels of fluoride and lowered IQ in children. These studies are, by all accounts, very poorly done.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
There are a lot of other things that could be causing this effect besides the fluoride. But getting into the early 2000s, especially, you start to see some researchers at least noting this and asking some questions about, okay, is there a pattern here that we need to investigate more?
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
They do, although it happens slowly. In 2006, there's a kind of a panel of advisors commissioned on behalf of the federal government say, some of this evidence about neurotoxicity is suggestive enough that we need to see more research. And that begins in particular to trigger some studies, some initial research within the National Toxicology Program, which is an
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
which is housed within the National Institutes of Health by especially the mid-2010s.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
The National Toxicology Program is beginning to invest some considerable resources, both in funding research, funding epidemiological research on fluoride, and also commissioning a systematic review by some of their own scientists, meaning an intensive, intensive, exhaustive look through the scientific literature to try to understand whether there's a pattern here that merits review.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
further attention or even warrants more serious concern.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
Yeah, you know, it's a tough question and it's a question where depending on who you ask, you can get dramatically different answers.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
What I would say is that there is a small body of evidence that suggests that there may be some link between fluoride and neurodevelopmental effects, so especially sort of negative effects for fetuses or for young children at doses of fluoride that are not that much higher or maybe actually are the same as what people are routinely encountering when drinking water
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
that has been treated as part of a community water fluoridation program. So the sort of typical fluoridated water that most Americans get out of their taps.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
I wouldn't say that there is by any means a scientific consensus around that at this point, but at the same time, I don't think it's a fringe position within the worlds of environmental epidemiology or toxicology to say, we see a concerning signal here and this is something that we need to be paying more attention to. At the same time, you have some folks who are really skeptical of this research.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
You have, especially in the world of dental public health, some researchers who say, we just don't think these studies are very good, and we don't think the evidence is nearly strong enough to be making these kinds of changes to a public health program. And you have other people outside the dental health world as well who are also raising some concerns about this research.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
Yeah. You know, I think this is one of those areas where dismissing even having the conversation as being not okay, right, or saying even considering this is engaging a conspiracy theory has the potential to backfire. for people who have public health in mind.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
I think, as I said before, it is not a fringe position right now within the world of environmental epidemiology and toxicology that there may at least be some signal here that researchers should be paying attention to. But I think this brings us back to this really deep question in
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
in public health, which is how do you communicate uncertainty and what does it look like to talk about uncertainty in public? And answering that is well above my pay grade, but I think it's something that we all do well to wrestle with.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
And in general, I write a lot about scientific controversies and kind of debates over what science says and does not say.