It also signals a dangerous “authoritarian” approach from top health officials, Hodge said – despite previous opposition from those leaders to unspecified “lockdowns” from the Covid pandemic.

“The hypocrisy is almost unreal,” Gostin said. “The whole raison d’etre of Secretary Kennedy’s tenure has been based upon medical freedom, ‘the patient gets to choose’, and yet here they’re issuing immediately a compulsory deprivation of liberty.”

After more than a decade without fluoridated water in Saint John, the dental community is seeing a surge in tooth decay among young people.