Oklahoma RFK Jr. signs “Make Oklahoma healthy again”
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. joined Gov. Stitt to introduce a new executive order. clock:
Provided by Governor Kevin Stitt’s Office
The Oklahoma Department of Health scrubbed all mentions of the community’s water fluorination program ahead of Gov. Kevin Stitt’s order to review state policies that recommend that water systems add fluoride to prevent childhood cavities.
As of May 2025, the state health department still approved the program and published data on why fluoride is important to health outcomes, an archive version of the program’s landing page show. However, that information has now been removed from the department’s website.
On a now-deleted state webpage, he explained that fluoride is “safe, cost-effective and beneficial for everyone who drinks and uses water.” The use of fluoride was believed to be “a significant reduction in the prevalence and severity of dental rot.”
Agency spokesperson Erika Rankin Riley said the governor’s office did not instruct the department to delete the page, but the decision was made in anticipation of his executive order. Stitt signed the executive order on June 26th. This requires the department to immediately stop promotion or approval of Fluorescent Supplement F until new and new recommendations are available for development. The report will be paid within 90 days.
“We are instructing the Oklahoma Department of Health to stop our recommendations for fluoride in water,” Stitt told a news conference along with US Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The ultimate effect of Stitt’s executive order has yet to be seen. Water fluorination has always been a local decision, but was based on federal and state recommendations. Local water systems can still add fluoride to the water, but political change could encourage some communities to abandon their practices.
What is fluoride? What are the advantages?
Fluorides – naturally occurring minerals found in water, soil, air, and various foods – help prevent tooth cavities and cavities. The mineral has been added to public water supply in the United States for decades and has been added as a dental precaution, such as toothpaste.
Fluoride works by strengthening the enamel of teeth, which is a hard exterior surface, and is resistant to acids produced by bacteria in the mouth that cause cavities, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Fluoride also reverses early tooth decay by replacing and preventing mineral loss.
Before the start of community water fluorination, tooth collapse and cavities were widely available and affected the entire US population, according to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Public health officials later recommended water fluorination after studying how fluoride can reduce tooth decay.
The CDC, known as drinking water fluorination, is one of the biggest public health outcomes of the 20th century, during which time the average life expectancy of Americans increased by 30 years.
More than 100 health agencies, including the CDC, the American Medical Association, the World Health Organization, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Dental Association, claim that water fluorination is safe and effective. According to the American Dental Association, community water fluorination reduces tooth decay in children and adults by more than 25% and more than 25% for children and adults.
Real-world examples of cities that abandon fluorination support the general scientific consensus that this practice prevents tooth decay.
After cities in Calgary, Canada and Juneau, Alaska stopped adding fluoride to their water systems, researchers found that children develop more cavity. Ten years after no fluoride, the Calgary government voted to get it back.
Promotes RFK Jr. to ban fluorides in water
Fluoride skepticism has existed in the United States since the first policy recommendations were written in 1951. It remained a protest of Fringe, rooted primarily in conspiracy theory, but in recent years fluoride skepticism has gained traction in conservative circles.
Questions regarding the use of fluoride in public water supplies have been amplified in recent months by Kennedy, who President Donald Trump chose to oversee the country’s health agenda.
Earlier this year, Kennedy argued that fluoride makes Americans “silly” and cited research criticised by national scholars in science, engineering and medicine, and the American Dental Association for inadequate statistical rigor and other methodological defects.
Kennedy also said in April that he would direct the CDC to stop recommending cities and states add fluoride to public water systems. Adding fluoride to water is not required by law.
Some states have already pulled back fluorination. Utah became the first state to ban fluoride in public water systems after Gov. Spencer Cox signed the legislation in March. The law came into effect on May 7th.
Florida has become the second state to prohibit fluoride from being added to public water supplies after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill in May. The new law is expected to come into effect on July 1st.
Contributed by: Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy, Cybele Mayes-Sosterman, and Hannah Yasharoff, USA TDY
