In the closing days of the Presidential campaign, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that "the Trump White House will advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water." Multiple news reports pounced on the statement as another example of RFK Jr's fringe and potentially dangerous views about public health.
Often unmentioned in these news stories is that the next Secretary of Health and Human Services' views on fluoridation will likely matter less than the views of the next Environmental Protection Agency Administrator--and the views of both could matter less than those of federal judges.
This past September, in Food & Water Watch v. EPA, a federal district court judge in the Northern District of California concluded that recommended levels of fluoride in drinking water present an "unreasonable risk" to public health under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), and ordered the EPA to address this concern. And while it's Donald Trump who has nominated a fluoridation skeptic to HHS, this judge (Edward Chen) was appointed by President Obama.
