Drill, Baby, Drill: Robert Kennedy Jr. Is After Your Teeth

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PRECIOUS BODILY FLUIDS’:  There was a point in time where my brother Joseph and I had 37 cavities between us. We were dumb kids. Our dentist was a kindly old gentleman who didn’t believe in Novocaine. Worse yet, he was recovering from a recent stroke. His hands shook.

Had we known about her at the time, we would have sought the divine intercessions of St. Apollonia, patron saint for those experiencing dental pain. Apollonia was one of the many Christians martyred in Egypt back in the year 249 ad. An angry mob of non-denominationally specific infidels — loyal to the gods of Rome — reportedly yanked every tooth out of Apollonia’s mouth. 

Then, when the mob threatened to toss Apollonia into the fire, she denied them the pleasure by doing it herself. In paintings, Apollonia is typically depicted beaming with a rare beatific tranquility while holding a very large pair of dental tongs. Never before nor since have suicide and dental pain been so sublimely fused. 

I mention this because Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump’s nominee to run the Department of Health and Human Services, is now making loud noises about taking fluoride out of the United States’ water supplies.  

Fluoride — which protects tooth enamel from corrosion and decay — ranks as one of the all-time great public health success stories — or an evil conspiracy, if Big Brother and the Deep State is your brand of paranoia.  

But because of fluoride in the water supply, millions upon millions of fragile young teeth were spared the agonies of the drill. 

I get it. Being one of 11 children, Kennedy clearly feels a strong need to say and do outlandish things. He didn’t get the attention he needed. We all know how he took the roadkill of a dead bear cub and planted it in Central Park to make it appear as if it had been killed in a collision there.  

Or how during COVID, he said that Jews hiding from the Nazis had more freedom than Americans forced to wear masks and endure the agonies of vaccination. Even his wife — Cheryl Hines of Curb Your
Enthusiasm fame — denounced his remarks as “reprehensible.” 

Kennedy did feel compelled to apologize for dragging the Holocaust where it had no business being. Such contrition was not evident, however, when Kennedy accused the Chinese of genetically engineering COVID to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Black people. In his haste, he somehow forgot to mention the Amish, also reported to be beneficiaries in this particular conspiracy theory.

I get it. Kennedy comes from a big family. So do I.

But fluoride? Really? Even for Kennedy, that’s a bridge too whack. 

Back in the ’50s, similar right-wing whackos, who believed the then-president Dwight D. Eisenhower was a willing Commie stooge of the Soviet Union, also believed fluoride was a communist threat designed to embrittle the bones of virile American males and compromise their precious bodily fluids.

Today, Kennedy is citing a recent study linking extremely high concentrations of fluoride in water to a drop in IQ scores for young kids. If I got it right, the study looked at communities in 18 countries — none in the U.S. — where fluoride levels were twice what’s allowed in the United States. IQ levels for young kids in these populations were two-five points lower than in communities without high fluoride levels. 

Fluoride, by the way, is a naturally occurring compound and already exists in many — but not all — local water supplies. That’s the case in Santa Barbara, for example, and none is added to our water supply. 

But roughly 75 percent of the U.S. population draws water from supplies with augmented fluoridation. Residents of Grand Rapids, Michigan, the first city to be fluoridated — back in 1945 — experienced during the first 11 years a 60 percent decline in dental decay among young kids. 

The places that have stopped fluoridizing their water due to opposition from libertarian-minded fear-mongers, such as Israel, have also been studied. That country had mandatory water fluoridation for years but repealed it in 2014 due to a similar outbreak of hysteria. The impacts were immediate. Between 2016 and 2019, the number of dental treatments in that country increased by 60 percent. The biggest impact was among 3-year-olds.  

Similar studies have been done in Juneau, Alaska, after city voters opted to go off the fluoride grid, with similar results. A big before-and-after study was done highlighting the dental outcomes in the Canadian cities of Calgary, who opted to remove fluoride from their water, and Edmonton, whose residents chose to stick with it. Again: No fluoride. More dental problems.

On the subject of IQ — a highly discredited and culturally biased pseudo-scientific measurement, by the way — I’d suggest dental pain might be a significant impediment to classroom achievement. 

To state another truth so overwhelming that no studies need be conducted: Dental pain translates directly and immeasurably to economic pain. Dental insurance in the United States exists in name only. At best, it’s a fig leaf.   

But I am clearly biased. By the time the water supplies where my brother and I grew up were fluoridated, our young teeth had already “erupted,” and the damage was done. Back when I was getting my fillings filled, I sought sympathy from my family. I got laughed at. My oldest sister, who was pregnant at the time, had undergone a root canal with no anesthesia at all. Pain was for sissies.

Robert Kennedy? Head of the Department of Health and Human Services? 

St. Apollonia, protect us.