Editorial written by the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board.
Say this for Illinois: We love our fluoride.
Back in the 1940s, three Chicago suburbs were among the guinea pigs in an experiment to uncover the benefits of fluoridated drinking water. The mineral occurred naturally in west suburban Aurora, so its water system became a baseline. Then Evanston added fluoride and Oak Park went without. Over 15 years, the prevalence of dental cavities in children dropped by as much as 70% in the communities with fluoride, and a public health juggernaut was born.
Starting in the 1960s, most Illinois water systems were required to add fluoride, or adjust the level if it was already present, resulting in much healthier teeth. To this day, fluoride is required throughout Illinois. Altogether, nearly three-fourths of the nation’s population gets it in their water.
Now this public health triumph is under new scrutiny, including from one of the highest-profile Cabinet nominees of the incoming Donald J. Trump administration.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is slated to head the Department of Health and Human Services, a powerful role that sets the nation’s health care policy. He has called fluoride “industrial waste” and advocated for removing it from drinking water. Trump also nominated Dr. Mehmet Oz to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, another telegenic politico with a history of advancing fringe medical theories, then digging in when challenged with scientific consensus.
This page opposed one of Trump’s Cabinet picks, the now-withdrawn Matt Gaetz, but we also recognize that Trump, like other incoming presidents, deserves a measure of deference.
We don’t intend to join the liberal panic attack over the nominees, especially before the Senate has conducted confirmation hearings (which are necessary, and should not be bypassed via recess appointments, as some Trump acolytes have suggested).
We’re mindful that in modern times the country has survived bad actors in Cabinet posts like Robert McNamara at Defense, James Watt at Interior and John Mitchell at Justice. In contrast, Trump has nominated a highly qualified economic team, for instance, and anyone claiming his Cabinet picks are the worst ever should check out Ulysses S. Grant’s.
Still, RFK and Dr. Oz give us pause and make us wonder how the U.S. got to this point of potentially having its health policy dictated by people outside the scientific mainstream. For the answer, look no further than the nation’s awful experience with COVID-19.
Policy errors, overreaches and miscommunication during the pandemic badly hurt the credibility of government scientists, at least for a big slice of the population, which is now open to the dubious pronouncements of RFK and Dr. Oz — not to mention that perennial parade of hucksters pushing supplements, fad diets and God-knows-what-else on talk radio, podcasts and social media.
With 1.2 million COVID-19 deaths, the U.S. did much worse than other wealthy countries in combatting the pandemic, largely because mistakes at the top made Americans doubt authorities who they should have been able to trust.
Even after studies showed that COVID-19 was very rarely contracted from contaminated surfaces and that transmission was much more common indoors than outdoors, cities and states kept parks, playgrounds and beaches closed. After research showed that schools could be reopened safely with basic public health measures, Chicago and other jurisdictions kept teaching online only for months past the point of logic.
