Military Times: Warren presses Hegseth about fluoridation’s impact on readiness

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has sent a letter pressing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for answers about how potentially ending fluoride use in drinking water, as recently championed by the Trump administration's health care chief, could undermine military readiness.

Warren's Thursday letter comes as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said he plans to direct the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to stop recommending fluoride be added to drinking water in communities nationwide. Kennedy said he’s assembling a task force of health experts to study the issue and make new recommendations. Kennedy, who has called fluoride a "dangerous neurotoxin," has blamed the fluoridation of drinking water on health issues, including arthritis, bone breaks and thyroid disease, according to The Associated Press.

"These attacks on the use of fluoride for dental health present a serious readiness problem," Warren wrote in her letter, adding that Sean O’Keefe, the administration’s nominee to be deputy under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, has said "dental health issues are often the largest cause of non-deployability within a military unit."

The potential reversal of the CDC’s recommendations on fluoridated water "will exacerbate these readiness concerns," Warren wrote.

State and local governments have the authority to add fluoride to water sources, but the CDC’s recommendation to fluoridate water is widely followed.

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