Day one of the new order! Aside from chasing down political enemies, and sending them off to fight in foreign wars, born-again US President Donald Trump is bringing a Kennedy back to the White House as a kind of health tsar.

Well, it seems that way.

Robert F Kennedy Jr – whose father, assassinated in 1968, was regarded as the brains of the family – is keen to ban certain vaccines.

But more dramatically, he’s determined to remove fluoride – which he describes as “industrial waste” – from all public water reservoirs.

This would undo a public health measure widely considered as one of the greatest public health achievements of the 20th century. And certainly one of the most cost effective.

Adding a small amount of fluoride to the water supply has literally saved millions of teeth from breaking down and falling out, along with saving billions of dollars in dental costs.

Given that an estimated 72 per cent of the US population gets their water from fluoridated systems, it will be interesting to see what happens to America’s teeth on a grand scale if Kennedy’s dream comes true.

Trump has appeared open to the idea, telling NBC News: “Well, I haven’t talked to him about it yet, but it sounds OK to me.”

Not industrial waste

Keeping in mind the strong resistance to government interventions  by a significant portion of the US population, it’s remarkable that so much of the country’s water has been fluoridated for 80 years. (The program began in 1945.)

Still, there was resistance in the form of conspiracy theories. The government, for example, was using fluoride for mass mind control. Or poisoning sections of the populace (oppressed right wingers) for political reasons.

According to a recent report at NPR: “There were movements that sprouted up all over the country to stop fluoridation in the drinking water.”

Some of these movements gained traction.

In 1966, Honolulu’s government gave the thumbs down to fluoride. The no-fluoride position never changed: “A 2015 report found that the state had the highest rate of tooth decay among children in the nation, and it continues to have some of the worst oral health of any state.”

What about Australia?

In 2013, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that young children from parts of northern NSW without fluoridated water were being hospitalised for mass extractions of rotten teeth at nearly twice the rate of other children.

Dentists and paediatricians in Lismore and Ballina, where resistance to vaccination has proved problematic, said tooth decay among young children is at third-world levels.

By the way, the idea that fluoride is “industrial waste” is just weird.

So … what is fluoride?

A lengthy explainer from the federal government’s National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), fluoride “is a naturally occurring component of mineral salts found in rocks, soil, natural water sources, plants and animals”.

Most toothpastes contain very low amounts of fluoride. Photo: Getty

Countless studies have shown that fluoride strengthens teeth and reduces cavities by replacing minerals lost during normal wear and tear.

According to the Cleveland Clinic: Every day, your tooth enamel gains and loses minerals. You lose minerals when acids – formed from bacteria, plaque and sugars in your mouth – attack your enamel, which serves as the protective layer of the teeth.

You gain minerals, such as fluoride, calcium and phosphate, when you consume food and water that contain these minerals.

Dental fluoride helps prevent tooth decay by making your enamel more resistant to acid attacks. It also reverses early decay.

Fluoride in Australia

In Australia, the first community water fluoridation program began in 1953 in Beaconsfield, Tasmania.

Most large Australian cities have fluoridated their water since the 1960s and 1970s. Overall, as of February 2017, “89 per cent of Australians have access to fluoridated drinking water”.

According to the NHMRC, in Australia, for every dollar that is spent on fluoridation, “between $7 and $18 is saved due to avoided treatment costs”.

Following the introduction of water fluoridation in Victoria, “the community saved about $1 billion over a 25-year period through avoided costs from dental treatment and days absent from work/school”.

Overall, more than 400 million people around the world benefit from fluoridated drinking water.

Most of western Europe doesn’t drink fluoridated, but some of those countries provide fluoride in salt and milk.

Too much fluoride is toxic

Large amounts of fluoride can be toxic and can cause light to severe discolouration of the teeth (known as fluorosis). This tends to occur when well or bore water contain high levels of fluoride.

It’s very difficult to reach dangerous fluoride levels due to the low levels of fluoride in toothpastes and other products.

There are some studies that suggest higher levels of fluoride can cause lower IQs in children.

The biggest complaint from lobby groups is that fluoride should be used only as a topical treatment, in toothpastes for example.

These groups argue that topical treatment controls dosage more effectively than systemic treatment in water supply systems.

In 2016, Harvard published an article that detailed evidence suggesting the risks of fluoridation outweighed the benefits. These arguments haven’t largely held up in legal challenges.