Ken Paxton Ready To Fight For Texas Children's Right To Tooth Decay
Four out of five dentists agree Ken Paxton is an idiot.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced this week that he sent out Civil Investigative Demands (CIDs) to Crest and Colgate, accusing them of “illegally” marketing toothpaste with fluoride in it to children and their parents.
Only toothpaste with fluoride, which prevents cavities and tooth decay, can get an ADA Seal of Acceptance, and most of Texas still has fluoridated water, so the “investigation” makes little sense beyond Paxton indicating where his loyalties stand. Buying into the anti-fluoride conspiracy is now a way of telling the world “I’m so loyal to Donald Trump that I’m willing to pretend this very stupid thing is true, even though it clearly is not!”
In the press release announcing the CIDs, Paxton’s office blatantly lied about a Department of Health and Human Services report on fluoride released last year.
The investigation was launched amid a growing body of scientific evidence demonstrating that excessive fluoride exposure is not safe for children. For example, in August 2024, the Department of Health and Human Services’ National Toxicology Program released a meta-analysis that found a statistically significant association between fluoride exposure and lower IQ scores in children.
It’s missing some pretty important details there — the most important being that the analysis only found “higher levels of fluoride exposure, such as drinking water containing more than 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per liter, are associated with lower IQ in children.” Not, as Paxton’s office implies, any amount of fluoride whatsoever. The amount recommended for US community drinking water is 0.7 milligrams of fluoride per liter, or less than half of what they determined “with moderate confidence” was associated with lower IQ in children. They did not determine that those levels had any effect at all.
But, to be fair, Paxton is talking about fluoride in toothpaste, not in water, and both the CDC and the ADA recommend only using a small amount of toothpaste for young children who might swallow some of it. Toothpaste is something you are supposed to spit out, but it may happen accidentally with children who don’t yet know better.
The press release states that:
The CDC states that parents should only put a rice-sized “smear” of toothpaste on the brush until the child turns three years old. The American Dental Association has also stated that parents should use “no more than a pea-sized amount” of fluoride toothpaste for children ages 3-6. This is because of the well-known acute and long-term risks associated with fluoride overdose.
However, despite both these and additional guidelines, toothpaste manufacturers continue to flavor their products and deceptively market them in ways that encourage kids to ingest fluoride toothpaste and mislead their parents to use far more than the safe and recommended amount of fluoride toothpaste.
First of all, every kind of baby toothpaste I was able to find — including the kinds sold by Crest and Colgate — does not even have fluoride in it.
Second, one of the reasons why lots of kids’ toothpastes are fruit- or bubblegum-flavored is because they have more sensitive taste buds than adults do, and so the mint kind we use can be way too strong for them. Contrary to what Paxton suggests, a 2018 systematic review and meta-analysis found that children are not more likely to swallow fruit-flavored toothpaste than mint toothpaste.
Third, while parents should obviously only use the recommended amounts, they’re not recommended due to a fear of “fluoride overdose” or anything having to do with IQ development. Rather, it’s to prevent fluorosis, a cosmetic dental issue, usually causing white spots or streaks on the teeth.
A “fluoride overdose” would involve, say, a one-year-old eating at least a third of a tube of regular toothpaste. It would not be caused by regular brushing, even with too much toothpaste on the brush.
I genuinely do not believe that even Ken Paxton believes his own bullshit on this — particularly given his heinous record on environmental issues. I think it’s just the desire to go along with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s crazy, along with the standard Trumpian Every Day is Opposite Day agenda. Fluoride is good, therefore it’s bad. Studies say it’s safe in appropriate amounts, therefore it’s unsafe. Brushing your teeth is good, therefore it’s bad. It’s all about confusing everything so that nothing feels real or true anymore.
And let’s be real — if the Republican Party actually believed that normal amounts of fluoride lowers the IQ, they’d be all for it. It would certainly help them win elections.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
Worth noting that the link between fluoride and stronger teeth was discovered when health professionals noticed some places had lower incidence of tooth decay and, using "science" and "math", traced it to fluoride naturally occurring in local water supply. With America's switch to meme-based public health policy, such a discovery will never happen again.
Paxton isn't in prison yet? Or a grave?