Overview:
Since 1945, municipalities have added small amounts of fluroide to prevent tooth decay in children. Even with that measure, Black children are more likely to develop cavities than white children.
When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ended his longshot 2024 presidential campaign and endorsed former President Donald Trump, both men made it clear: they are a package deal.
If he wins the election, Trump has said Kennedy — a libertarian environmentalist, conspiracy theorist and vaccine skeptic — will have a place in his cabinet. Indeed, Trump has said he will let Kennedy “go wild” on public health policy.
Kennedy wants to use that power to enact a range of controversial moves that would be harmful to Black people, from removing fluoride from the public water supply to promoting anti-vaccination conspiracy theories, some of which have been aimed at the Black community.
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While both men acknowledge their ideas aren’t fully formed, the alliance between Trump — who once theorized that COVID-19 could be treated with injections of bleach — and Kennedy, who believes the pandemic vaccine was created to attack the Black community, has some medical and public health experts sounding the alarm.
Longtime Public Health Policy
The issue burst into the national conversation this weekend when Kennedy dropped a social media post declaring that if Trump is re-elected, the new administration “will advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water.”
Fluoride, he wrote, “is an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease.”
Speaking with NBC News, Trump said the plan “sounds OK to me.”
Municipalities have added fluoride to public drinking water systems since 1945. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention described these public water fluoridation efforts, and vaccines, as among the top 10 public health achievements of the 20th Century.
The backlash to Kennedy didn’t take long.
Getting rid of fluoride could be a big problem for Americans in general and Black Americans in particular. Research has found Black Americans have worse oral health than their white peers, and they are more susceptible to diseases that are worsened by poor oral health.
“The ADA is aware there is widespread misinformation circulating online and in social media around community water fluoridation,” the organization said in September. ”The Association urges its members and the public to be cautious of “pseudo-scientific information,” the organization says.
And there is more evidence that the health of Black Americans could get worse with Kennedy working in a second Trump administration.
Conspiracies and Racist Tropes
The son of Sen. Robert Kennedy and nephew to President John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy Jr. has long been a vaccine skeptic. As a presidential candidate, his healthcare platform was long on conspiracies and racist tropes but short on actual policies or solutions.
For decades Kennedy has promoted conspiracy theories claiming vaccines against childhood diseases cause autism. And in 2021, Kennedy produced a film called “Medical Racism: The New Apartheid” that exploited the history of medical racism in the United States to argue COVID-19 vaccines were intended to harm Black communities.
The COVID mortality rate for Black Americans is double that of whites and one-third higher than for Latinos. Research findings are that COVID caused more than 1.6 million excess deaths of Black Americans.
Medical experts and scientists widely dispute Kennedy’s views on vaccines and rumors about a link between the MMR vaccine and autism were proved untrue and based on fraudulent research.
Public health experts note that vaccination has been a historically effective public health tool and has wiped out or reduced the prevalence of diseases, including smallpox, polio, and measles, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
‘Can’t Change Human Nature’
During his campaign RFK, Jr. was resigned to the fact that racism exists and proposed fuzzy solutions.
“We’re never going to eliminate racism … We’re hardwired to look for differences in other people and then to essentially practice racism. I don’t think you can change that human nature, but what you can do is you can make kids resilient against it,” said Kennedy. “The way you do that is by giving them a great education so that they know that they have potential.”
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However, vaccines are required for children to attend public schools and Black children are less likely to be fully vaccinated than white children.
Neither Trump nor Kennedy have specific ‘proposals that would expand healthcare access for Black Americans, who are less likely to have health insurance than whites. Trump also has put the Affordable Care Act in his crosshairs, even though it’s been largely successful and has helped more lower-income and Black people get insurance.
The danger of the Trump-Kennedy alliance “extends beyond politics to public health,” Kavita Patel, a physician and nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution who has advised the Harris campaign, told The Washington Post. “This rhetoric could erode trust in essential health measures, potentially leaving millions vulnerable if these ideas translate into policy.”