RFK Jr. has embraced fringe well being care concepts for many years. If Trump wins, he’ll possible be capable to affect promotion and funding for this stuff.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Former President Trump informed 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 studies, public well being specialists are alarmed.
SELENA SIMMONS-DUFFIN, BYLINE: Including fluoride to water programs began in 1945 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It has been used extensively since then to stop tooth decay in kids. 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 believe 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 programs 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 Kids’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
PAUL OFFIT: Fluoride’s been effectively examined. It clearly and positively decreases cavities and isn’t related to any clear proof of the power illnesses 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 very fervent in his advocacy in opposition to using vaccines, explains Offit.
OFFIT: Which illnesses would he prefer to see come again? – polio, which, , induced as much as 35,000 circumstances of paralysis a 12 months and 1,500 deaths? – or whooping cough, which might trigger 8,000 kids 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 be capable to cease us when he empowers me to scrub up corruption within the federal businesses, and particularly our well being businesses.
SIMMONS-DUFFIN: These well being businesses embrace 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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