RFK Jr. has embraced fringe well being care concepts for many years. If Trump wins, he’ll probably have the ability to affect promotion and funding for this stuff.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Former President Trump advised NBC yesterday that eradicating fluoride from the water provide, quote, “sounds OK” to him. He was responding to a declaration from his ally Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He is lined as much as advise Trump on federal well being coverage, and Kennedy has unfold misinformation about vaccines. As NPR’s Selena Simmons-Duffin experiences, public well being specialists are alarmed.
SELENA SIMMONS-DUFFIN, BYLINE: Including fluoride to water methods began in 1945 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It has been used extensively since then to stop tooth decay in youngsters. In actual fact, the CDC has known as it one of many 10 nice public well being achievements of the twentieth century. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. defined his place on fluoride at an occasion with The New York Solar in September.
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ROBERT F KENNEDY JR: I feel fluoride is a poison.
SIMMONS-DUFFIN: Over the weekend, he posted on X that on Inauguration Day, former President Donald Trump would advise all U.S. water methods to take away fluoride. He wrote, quote, “fluoride is an industrial waste,” finish quote, and stated it was related to arthritis, IQ loss, thyroid illness, amongst different situations. Not true, says Dr. Paul Offit of the Youngsters’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
PAUL OFFIT: Fluoride’s been effectively examined. It clearly and undoubtedly decreases cavities and isn’t related to any clear proof of the power ailments talked about in that tweet.
SIMMONS-DUFFIN: Offit has written many books, together with one about celebrities and politicians spreading debunked well being info.
OFFIT: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a science denialist. He makes up his personal scientific truths and ignores the precise truths.
SIMMONS-DUFFIN: Kennedy is particularly fervent in his advocacy towards the usage of vaccines, explains Offit.
OFFIT: Which ailments would he wish to see come again? – polio, which, you realize, brought about as much as 35,000 circumstances of paralysis a yr and 1,500 deaths? – or whooping cough, which might trigger 8,000 youngsters to die yearly?
SIMMONS-DUFFIN: Kennedy, on Monday, posted a video urging his supporters to vote for Trump so he is elected with a powerful mandate.
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KENNEDY: And nobody will have the ability to cease us when he empowers me to wash up corruption within the federal companies, and particularly our well being companies.
SIMMONS-DUFFIN: These well being companies embody the Meals and Drug Administration, the Nationwide Institutes of Well being and the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, amongst others.
Selena Simmons-Duffin, NPR Information, Washington.
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