From PBS NewsHour.

As a former practicing dentist for 22 years, Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, said Wednesday he had observed the benefits of fluoride and was concerned about the Food and Drug Administration’s move to take ingestible fluoride supplements for children off the market.

“I want to see the studies on this,” Simpson told Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a hearing before the House Appropriations Committee.

“We better put a lot more money into dental education because we’re gonna need a whole lot more dentists,” Simpson added. Fluoride has been praised as passive protection for Americans’ oral health for decades.

In April, Kennedy said he would direct the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to stop recommending that communities add fluoride to drinking water. He also praised Utah, the first state in the nation to ban fluoride in public drinking water, and said he hoped more states would do the same.

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