2026 is already looking to be filled with plenty of crank science. Over the weekend, Joseph Ladapo, Florida’s controversial surgeon general, recommended that people start drinking “structured” water—a seemingly fictional form of water that’s become popular in the alternative medicine world.
Ladapo made the claim in an X post Saturday, in response to perfectly reasonable advice from the Florida Department of Health to stay hydrated. After first telling people to avoid drinking from plastic bottles if possible, Ladapo stated that “drinking structured water might offer more advantages.” The trouble is, structured water isn’t something that really exists, according to actual scientists.
“It surprises me greatly that someone in such an important public position could demonstrate a lack of basic undergraduate knowledge of science,” Timothy Schmidt, head of the School of Chemistry at the University of Sydney, told Gizmodo.
Avoid the plastic bottles as much as you can, and drinking structured water might offer more advantages… https://t.co/MxsVk7R4MN
— Joseph A. Ladapo, MD, PhD (@FLSurgeonGen) January 3, 2026
Snake oil by another name
Structured water is also sometimes called hexagonal or Exclusion Zone (EZ) water.
It’s supposedly a “fourth phase” of water, different from liquid, gaseous (water vapor), or solid (ice) water. The originator of the term, bioengineer Gerald Pollack, has argued that water can sometimes behave differently near very hydrophilic surfaces, or areas filled with things that are chemically attracted to water. This water purportedly has a distinct structure from other kinds of water, hence the name.
Proponents have also claimed that structured water is composed of three hydrogen atoms and two oxygen atoms, or H3O2, as opposed to the chemical formula of typical water, H2O. And it’s supposed to have all sorts of added health benefits over classic water, such as improved nutrient absorption, detoxification, and strengthened immunity.
While there could be something to the idea that water can behave weirdly around hydrophilic surfaces, that’s about where the science ends, according to Schmidt.
“Structured water is a nebulous idea—at its most fanciful, they suggest a chemical formula that does not exist and is different from that of actual water, while at its most scientifically plausible, it describes unusual properties of water near an interface,” said Schmidt, who has previously written about the implausibility of structured water.
Even if it might be possible for water to shift into a form resembling what proponents call structured water, Schmidt adds, such a change would be incredibly brief and not something that could be mass-produced and sold to people looking to improve their hydration game.
“There is no evidence that water with surface properties can be packaged into a product,” he explained. “Water molecules swap hydrogen atoms with each other after just two milliseconds, and it loses memory of its structure a billion times faster. Any water structure is changed completely after a few trillionths of a second.”
That hasn’t stopped people from claiming to have created structured water products marketed to boost your health, and even media outlets have occasionally been fooled by the sales pitch. Schmidt notes the Sydney Morning Herald once published an article in 2022 that credulously repeated the claimed health benefits of structured water with only the barest hint of skepticism (the article seems to have since been pulled down).
To give Ladapo a modicum of credit, it is true that experts generally recommend against reusing plastic water bottles, so his first piece of advice isn’t completely off-base. That said, that’s more because the bottles can accumulate harmful bacteria over time than because of the plastic itself (microplastics, unlike structured water, are a genuine phenomenon, but their health effects are still being studied).
Florida’s crank surgeon general
Of course, this is far from the first time Ladapo has endorsed sketchy notions about health.
During the early days of the covid-19 pandemic, for instance, Ladapo promoted ineffective treatments for the viral illness, such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin (numerous studies failed to find any benefit), while also downplaying the harms of the pandemic. And since taking over as the state’s surgeon general in September 2021, Ladapo has repeatedly misrepresented the safety of vaccines, particularly the covid-19 shot, and questioned the value of vaccine mandates in general (he once compared mandates to slavery).
Last September, Ladapo stated his intention to remove all of Florida’s school vaccine mandates—a plan so controversial that even President Donald Trump expressed his disdain for it. As of last December, the proposal has been scaled back to remove only some vaccines. Ladapo has also pushed for the state to end all water fluoridation, yet another move strongly opposed by actual experts.
Ladapo hawking fictional water might be small beans compared to all of the above. But it’s still a disturbing sign that our country’s public health is increasingly being led by devoted anti-science zealots.
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