In the waning days of his campaign, former President Donald Trump has further embraced some of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s incorrect or controversial views on health, including vaccines and fluoride.
In a Nov. 3 telephone interview with NBC News’ Dasha Burns, Trump appeared open to removing fluoride in the nation’s water supply and taking action to limit vaccines.
When asked if “banning certain vaccines might be on the table,” Trump replied, “Well, I’m going to talk to him and talk to other people, and I’ll make a decision, but he’s a very talented guy and has strong views,” referring to Kennedy.
Trump similarly said he hadn’t discussed fluoride yet with Kennedy, but when asked about Kennedy’s announcement that the Trump administration would advise against water fluoridation on Day One, he said, “it sounds OK to me.”
Small amounts of fluoride are added to drinking water in much of the U.S. to prevent tooth decay and are accepted as safe and effective by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and expert groups such as the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The founder of Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit that spreads anti-vaccine misinformation, Kennedy has been an outspoken opponent of vaccines and water fluoridation for many years. He has continued to make false and misleading claims about vaccines — including the debunked notion that vaccines cause autism — during his presidential run, first as a Democrat, and later as an independent.
In August, Kennedy endorsed Trump for president and has since become part of the candidate’s transition team. He’s also partnered with Trump on the “Make America Healthy Again” campaign, much of which is focused on chronic disease. There’s no question that Americans suffer too much from chronic conditions, but as we’ve written, Kennedy has a history of blaming such diseases on the wrong exposures, oversimplifying their causes and implausibly claiming that he can end the chronic disease epidemic “overnight.”
With Kennedy and on his own, Trump has previously repeated vaccine falsehoods. In a July telephone call with Kennedy, which one of Kennedy’s sons posted to social media, Trump incorrectly suggested that childhood vaccine doses are too large and are dangerous to kids. There’s no evidence that the current vaccination schedule is harmful to children.
In the phone call, which occurred prior to Kennedy’s decision to suspend his campaign and back Trump, the former president appeared to want to collaborate, telling Kennedy, “I would love you to do something.” Since the endorsement, there has been speculation that Kennedy might serve in a top health-related position in Trump’s government, much to the consternation of many scientists and public health experts.
“I’m going to let him go wild on health. I’m going to let him go wild on the food. I’m going to let him go wild on medicines,” Trump said of Kennedy during an Oct. 27 rally at Madison Square Garden.
“I said he could do it. He could do anything he wants,” Trump said at an event in Arizona on Oct. 31. “He wants to look at the vaccines. He wants everything. I think it’s great.”
In a video call with members of the campaign that circulated online, Kennedy said that Trump had “promised” him “control” of the nation’s public health agencies, mentioning Health and Human Services and some of its subagencies, the CDC, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health.
The campaign, however, would not confirm Kennedy’s claims — and called discussions of who would serve in the administration “premature.” Anonymous sources told NBC News that Kennedy would get a different kind of position focused on childhood chronic diseases.
In his Nov. 3 interview with Burns, Trump declined to specify Kennedy’s future position.
“I’m not going to talk about that but he’s going to have a big role in the administration,” Trump said, when asked whether he wanted Kennedy in a Cabinet position — and whether he thought Kennedy would make it through Senate confirmation.
In an Oct. 30 interview on CNN, Howard Lutnick, the co-chair of Trump’s transition team and head of the financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, said that Kennedy did not want — nor would he get — the secretary of Health and Human Services position.
“Here’s what he wants to do. He said, ‘I want data,’” Lutnick said of Kennedy and vaccines. “He wants the data so he can say these things are unsafe.”
Lutnick said he had spoken with Kennedy for two and a half hours, and proceeded to recite several of Kennedy’s go-to talking points about vaccines, including the idea that vaccines are responsible for the rise in the prevalence of autism over time and that vaccines are unsafe because of a 1986 law removing product liability.
“Why do you think vaccines are safe? There’s no product liability anymore,” Lutnick said. “We all know so many more people with autism than had it when we were young.”
As we’ve written, autism diagnoses have gone up over time, but much of that is related to more awareness and changing definitions of the condition. Study after study has failed to find a link between vaccines and autism.
A 1986 law did remove most liability for vaccine makers, but this did not alter the process for reviewing the safety and efficacy of vaccines. At the time, vaccine makers were increasingly being sued for alleged harms that were later found not to be due to vaccines — with large awards threatening the vaccine supply. In recognition that vaccines are highly beneficial, but do rarely cause serious side effects, such as allergic reactions, the government stepped in and set up an alternate compensation system for people with reasonable claims of harm.
Lutnick later posted on X that he and his wife “trust our doctors” and “have vaccinated our children and ourselves,” but said “not everybody trusts such advice or the FDA.”
“We would be doing everyone a service if the government respected Bobby Kennedy’s request to make the full data available,” he added.
There is no evidence, however, that there is any data being hidden that would show vaccines are unsafe.
In an Oct. 31 episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast, Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, also spoke negatively of vaccines.
“The moment where I really started to get redpilled on the whole vax thing was, the sickest I had been in the last 15 years, by far, was when I took the vaccine,” Vance said of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Compared with other vaccines, the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines tend to produce more of the temporary, expected side effects, such as pain at the injection site, fever and headache — particularly in younger people. While this can be unpleasant, it does not mean the vaccines are unsafe.
In the same Nov. 3 interview with Burns, Trump also indicated that he might go along with a Kennedy plan to stop water fluoridation in the U.S.
“Well, I haven’t talked to him about it yet, but it sounds OK to me,” Trump said, when asked about whether he was “on board” with such a plan. “You know, it’s possible.”
The day before, Kennedy had written on X that on Trump’s first day in office, his administration “will advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water.” The post went on to call fluoride an “industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease.” While high amounts of fluoride have been linked to some of these health problems, the relatively low levels of fluoride currently recommended in the U.S. generally have not. In some cases, the evidence is unclear.
Fluoride occurs naturally in some water systems. The CDC recommends that communities adjust the levels of fluoride in their water to optimal levels to prevent tooth decay, a suggestion supported by various expert groups. The CDC website states that there is “strong evidence of community water fluoridation’s safety and effectiveness.” As of 2022, around 63% of Americans received fluoridated water.
As we have written previously, there’s evidence that water fluoridation has had a positive impact on dental health. Most recently, a review study published in the Cochrane Library found that fluoridation may “lead to slightly more children being free of tooth decay,” although the addition of fluoride to toothpaste may have lessened the effects of fluoridating tap water.
Ingesting too much fluoride has a couple well-accepted harms. CDC and EPA recommendations and regulations attempt to ensure that people are exposed to only a safe level of fluoride.
High levels of fluoride exposure can lead to bone problems. To prevent these issues, the Environmental Protection Agency requires that public water systems keep fluoride levels below 4 mg per liter. Fluoride exposure during early life also can lead to dental fluorosis, a condition that typically just involves tooth discoloration. To protect against dental fluorosis, the EPA recommends a fluoride limit of 2 mg per liter. The CDC-recommended level of fluoride to improve dental health is below these limits — at 0.7 mg per liter.
Some studies — many including people exposed to water with very high levels of naturally occurring fluoride — also have indicated that exposure to fluoride during pregnancy may be associated with reduced IQ in children. As we have written, there is considerable uncertainty about whether the fluoride exposure caused the reduced IQ scores and what level of fluoride exposure might have a detrimental effect.
Experts differ on how communities should respond to this research on the potential effects of fluoride on the brain. As we’ve said, the CDC and various expert groups continue to recommend water fluoridation at optimal levels. However, some researchers have expressed concerns about the effects of fluoridation on child development.
Based on this body of work on fluoride and child brain development, anti-fluoridation groups sued the EPA. In September, a federal District Court judge ruled that the EPA must further regulate fluoride in drinking water. The judge concluded that fluoridation “poses an unreasonable risk of reduced IQ in children,” based on uncertainty about whether fluoride might affect brain development when added to water at recommended levels of 0.7 mg per liter.
Responses could range from banning fluoride in public drinking water to simply issuing a warning. The EPA has not yet said how it intends to respond.
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