WHAT CHANGED?

RFK Jr. Once Sold Bottled Water With Higher Fluoride Levels Than Tap

Kennedy’s former business partner said the incoming Health and Human Services Secretary didn’t have a problem with fluoride then.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., president-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, may be against fluoride in drinking water these days—but it wasn’t long ago when he was selling it in bottles, according to a New Yorker report published Monday. Kennedy co-founded Keeper Springs in 1999 in what was at the time considered an odd attempt to help clean polluted waterways. Before the company closed up shop in 2013, it had been selling water with fluoride in it—up to 1.3 milligrams per liter, according to a 2009 chemical analysis that the New Yorker cites. Tap water typically doesn’t contain as much of the mineral. The company’s other co-founder, Chris Bartle, told the outlet, “For a while, we had a source in upstate New York where the water was naturally fluoridated.... These two Iranian guys owned it. It was a pretty neat scenario, but we didn’t stay with them for long.” Bartle added that he never heard any complaints about fluoride from his then-business partner. Fluoride has been shown to prevent tooth decay.