Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is expanding his crusade to turn back the clock on federal health policy.

Having undermined the government’s support for childhood vaccines amid the worst measles outbreak in years, he is now targeting another longstanding pillar of American public health: water fluoridation.

HHS will convene a board of experts to review the federal government’s recommendation that communities fluoridate their water, the agency announced on Monday. The Environmental Protection Agency is simultaneously launching a review of the science on fluoride’s health effects.

The end result of those inquiries seems to be a foregone conclusion: Kennedy told the Associated Press that he wanted the government to stop recommending fluoridation. He has called fluoride “industrial waste” and blamed it for an array of health conditions, from neurological damage in children to bone cancer.

Banning fluoride is an integral part of Kennedy’s campaign to Make America Healthy Again. The news of the reviews came on the same day he appeared in Salt Lake City to praise Utah for being the first state to........

© Vox