Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller dredged up conspiracy theories this week as he called on Governor Greg Abbott to ban fluoride in the public drinking water.
“While we work to expand and improve our aging water infrastructure amid our growing water crisis, we must also address the fact that our water infrastructure should not be used as a delivery system for government-mandated chemicals without the consent of the people,” Miller said in a press release.
Miller joins a growing anti-fluoride movement across red states that includes Tennessee and North Dakota.
In 1945, Grand Rapids, Michigan became the first city in the United States to add fluoride to the drinking water to prevent tooth decay and improve oral health. The practice spread across the nation, including to Texas where more than 100 public water systems add the chemical. The National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research says that tooth decay dropped by more than 60 percent upon fluoridation, making it one of the most impactful and cost-effective public health initiatives in history.
However, almost as soon as fluoridation was introduced it was subject to nonsensical conspiracy theories. Groups like the fascist organization John Birch Society played on concerns about mind-control drugs during the Cold War to oppose fluoridation. Reasons range from claims that fluoride is poisonous in any quantity, that it is secretly nuclear waste, or that the drug is actually a front for social engineering by a One World Government.
None of this has ever been proven even remotely true. The movement received more support recently thanks to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a well known anti-medical science advocate who opposes many evidence-based initiatives such as childhood vaccination.
Shortly before the November election, Kennedy claimed that President Donald Trump would advise all public health systems to remove fluoride from water, claiming that public fluoridation is associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease. None of these conditions have been linked to public water fluoridation.
While there are some cases of over-fluoridization that have possibly resulted in detrimental health effects, the practice is supported by nearly every public health official. Writing for Forbes following anti-fluoridation remarks by Kennedy, Dr. Maria Sokolina, DDS, said that fluoridation saves $38 for every dollar spent on improving the oral health of Americans.
This is hardly the first time that Miller has hopped on a conspiracy bandwagon. Some of his greatest hits include claiming that Islamic terrorists were training in Brazoria County, a doctored image of former President Barack Obama holding up a shirt with communist revolutionary Che Guevara on it, a bizarre rumor that pop singer Lady Gaga would wear a burka until Trump left office, that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential run was endorsed by the Communist Party, and that Muslim protesters in Dearborn, Michigan paraded around a pictured of Christ’s severed head. That last one is particularly ridiculous as Christ is a revered prophet in Islam. Fact-checking site Snopes found that the picture was actually mourning the death of Imam Hussain.
Miller is reportedly still applying to run the national agricultural department. His sudden press release endorsing one of Kennedy’s favorite non-factual beliefs may be an attempt to gain the attention of Trump.
