by Rod Williams, Jan. 21, 2025 -
“On January 20, the Trump White House will advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water,” posted Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on X in November—and Tennessee is already getting the ball rolling. Last week, state Senator Joey Hensley (R-Hohenwald) filed a bill that “prohibits public water system operators from adding fluoride to their water systems.”
Over the last few years, the fluoridation of water has become a topic of contention among experts and lawmakers. News Channel 5 reported that several communities in Middle Tennessee have cut the chemical from their drinking water. In December, Montgomery County became the latest area to consider making the change. “Fluoride is an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease,” RFK Jr. explained in his announcement. (As reported in The Pamphleteer)
Along with "Impeach Earl Warren" and pictures of Martin Luther King at a Communist training camp, stopping fluoridation of water were messages on billboards and otherwise disseminated. Much of these messages, along with some others, were promulgated mostly by the John Birch Society.
The JBS was powerful in the early 60's and had captured control of many Republican Party chapters across the country. The JBS was not all nutty. Many of their positions were mainstream Republican, like support for law and order, low taxes, and smaller government. Their biggest appeal was anti-communism. They spread legitimate education on the nature and threat of Communism. The truth is that there was a lot of acceptance of Communism in many circles in America in the post-World War II era. There were spies and Communist had infiltrated government and had worked themselves into positions of influence, and in certain circles it was cool to be a Commie.
The JBS however saw Communism behind every bush and under every bed. Almost every American problem and almost anyone with a point of view that differed from there's was assumed to a Communist or influenced by Communist. Hollywood, unions, churches, universities, the media, and fraternal and civic organization were all seen as controlled or influenced by Communism.
The JBS claimed that fluoridation was a communist plot to undermine American public health. Not only was fluoride a poison, but they argued that if we accepted the idea that it was okay to medicate citizens by putting meds in public water, then that would be followed by other meds in water to control behavior.
While the JBS saw a Communist conspiracy everywhere, if one dug deeper however, there was a bigger conspiracy than the Communist conspiracy according to JBS. Ever since about the time of the enlightenment, Birchers claimed, the world had been controlled by a group of insiders who controlled everything. These "insiders" were the real ones in charge, and they allowed Communism and Nazism to flourish. Weird, but that was the grand conspiracy. If one just casually became acquainted with JBS they may never even discover the grand conspiracy, one had to dig to find it but that is what they believed is a fact. I suspect many members never even knew.
By about 1963 the influence of the JBC wanned. A move by William F. Buckley Jr, Barry Goldwater and a few others exposed JBS and the Republican Party began purging JBS and it dwindled to almost nothing for decades. Perhaps it is because I recall that the original opposition to fluoride was tied to the nutty JBS, that I find the current move to ban fluoride so disturbing.
One thing that I have observed overtime is that the extremes of left and right share a lot of the same conspiratorial mindset and at times they see the same enemies and believe that powerful people are pulling the strings, and we are all just puppets. Belief that 9-11 was an inside job, as an example, has adherents on each end of the far extremes.
Sometimes things that start out as a concern of leftist becomes also a concern of right-wing fringe types. We have seen that with opposition to vaccines. Before it was a right-wing thing it was a thing of the back-to-nature granola type lefties. Opposition to fluoride in drinking water started out as a right-wing thing, then migrated to mostly a concern of anti-vaxxer lefty types and now has returned to being a right-wing thing.
Even when a fringe position is not based on a belief in a conspiracy, it seems that the people on the political fringe share a distrust of change and innovation and are by nature suspicious. You can see this in opposition to nuclear energy, or GMO food products, or vaccines.
There is no denying that fluoride improved the dental health of Americans. I do wonder however, if it has outlived its usefulness. When fluoride was first introduced into the public water supply, no one was drinking bottled water. Most public buildings had functioning water fountains. Since those days, more and more people drink only bottled water. I am one of the few people I know who still drinks tap water. From my observation from spending years as a social worker working with poor people, I believe that even poor people drink mostly bottled water. I doubt many people any longer get a significant amount of fluoride from drinking water. I doubt much harm will be done by removing it. I would like to see a study that shows if fluoride in drinking water is still beneficial giving the changed way in which people consume water.
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One piece of evidence that might be helpful in this debate is statistics as to whether flouridation actually led to the listed health issues. There are stats showing that flouridation DID lead to better dental health. Unless there is EVIDENCE of its ill effects we should continue with what we know works to better health.
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