Richard Sauerheber, Ph.
(B.A. Biology, Ph.D. Chemistry, University of California, San Diego)
Palomar College, 1140 W. Mission Rd., San Marcos, CA 92069
Email: richsauerheb@hotmail.com   Phone: 760-744-2547
January 11, 2012

Dear Anthony Young, San Diego City Council, Mayor Sanders, and Attorney Dumanis,

As a concerned San Diego native I write again to help you understand your rights regarding the use of substances in water to treat citizens of the city. All Water Districts in the U.S. who treat people with industrial fluorides for any putative effect on teeth via the bloodstream after ingestion are responsible for measuring the fluoride level in the blood of citizens they decide to treat. The burden of quality control is on the utilites that administer the agent, not the consumer who is forced to ingest it.

The target blood level stated by the Oral Health Division dental officials within the CDC is 0.2 ppm fluoride [1], but neither the OHD dentists nor most city utilities understand that blood fluoride levels depend on water hardness. People consuming Seattle ultra-soft water (10 ppm calcium) have levels above 0.2 ppm in blood, and water chemists there add calcium chloride along with the fluoridation chemicals to help minimize assimilation [2].  In hard water Texas (safe 300 ppm calcium antidote), where the idea of ‘water fluoridation’ first began, the blood level is below 0.2 ppm.  San Diego water (labeled ‘soft’ by water districts) has a calcium to fluoride ratio of only about 60 mg calcium per 0.8 mg fluoride.  Animal studies show the blood level of fluoride was lowered 4 fold when calcium was administered along with sodium fluoride, compared to sodium fluoride alone.

Those who believe the false claim, that fluoride consumption is harmless long-term, regardless of all the published human and animal studies proving otherwise, do not explain how fluoride, that crosses the blood brain barrier [3] and accumulates in bone permanently [4], somehow magically avoids having any effect on systemic biologic functions. How does this happen? The answer of course is that fluoride indeed causes harm. Look at the 41% of 12-15 year olds in the U.S. having permanent abnormal tooth fluorosis that prevents a normal smile [4]. They are not smiling, and neither are the San Diego residents who know the truth – that industrial fluorides are all toxic calcium chelators [5]. San Diego voters have voted against fluoridation twice, but it is still being forced on them.

Unfortunately after 6 years of consuming aluminum fluoride treated municipal water, the former show elephants of the Wild Animal Park were finally euthanized at the San Diego Zoo this week [6]. One was unable to walk and the other had also deteriorated after both became mentally unstable and unable to follow tasks. These were once bright animals. They could easily follow directions and learn tricks. But the elephant shows had to be canceled a few years after the Park began accepting fluoridated municipal water in 2005. The Park was told in 2005 they would not receive the treated water, but the Park’s utility, the San Pasqual Water District, arranged for the city of Escondido to provide the water that is treated with aluminum and with industrial fluoride [7], thinking without evidence that the water would be healthy for elephants, not realizing their large body to brain volume ratio.

Show elephants consume copious amounts of water because of their daily activity level, over 60 gallons daily, and do not have kidneys designed to remove aluminum fluoride at an intake rate that high. They developed mental aberrations that are known to occur in laboratory animals given aluminum fluoride water at such levels for long time periods [3, 4], including inability to walk from motor brain degeneration. The problem is that aluminum and fluoride together in the acidic stomach form complexes that are assimilated into the bloodstream, causing aluminum accumulation in the brain [4].  Aluminum in water which does not also contain industrial fluoride is not assimilated.

The elephants were transferred from the Wild Animal Park to the San Diego Zoo in January of 2010, and there they were also given fluoridated water to drink. The elephants’ mental deficiencies continued to decline. The were even unable to wander around freely in the enclosure. They were standing vegetables. They were recently euthanized.  Zoo veterinarians have no explanation for what happened to our elephants. They have not been trained in fluoride toxicology, yet they are reluctant to consider aluminum carried by silicofluoride as the toxin that dumbed down their charges.

It is necessary for city officials to request blood testing of citizens in San Diego that are under your care to verify that the target fluoride blood level is maintained with this new radical water district treatment.  Remember that the CA law, that requests ‘fluoridation,’ does not mention the fluoride source of choice nor does it provide protocols for our local water, having only 60 ppm calcium, to achieve a desired blood level of 0.2 ppm fluoride. The CA Dept. of Health merely suggests what the OHD suggests, to use synthetic industrial hazardous waste fluosilicic acid diluted to ‘1 ppm’ free fluoride, making no mention of adjustments for water calcium or aluminum content!  It must be emphasized again that both the CDC and the CA Dept. of Health, in detailed letters to me, made it perfectly clear that the city itself bears all responsibility and all liability for the injections designed to treat citizens in San Diego; and monitoring the health effects of animals by either agency is out of the question.

Is it time to halt these injections? Of course it is. The FDA has never approved ingestion of fluoride because it is not a mineral nutrient and in water is an uncontrolled use of a non FDA-approved drug. When added intentionally into water, the FDA decreed fluoride is an unapproved drug. When accidentally or naturally found in water, both the FDA  and EPA rule fluoride is a contaminant. We expect the FDA to ban the intentional injection of fluorides, or to bar the OHD from requesting the injections, soon. But nevertheles in the meantime, cities bear all liability for the injection of fluoride into citizens through public water supplies and because of that fact alone have full legal authority to halt the injections.

We have data from the 50 U.S. states that rank disease incidence as a function of percent of water districts that fluoridate. The data indicate yet again that water fluoridation does not influence teeth decay, but has significant associations with increased tooth fluorosis, mental retardation, cancer and cardiovascular deaths. There was no correlation of increased incidence of Alzheimer’s disease with fluoridation, but cities were not separated between those that treat water also with aluminum from those that do not.

Please let me be clear.  It is possible that the elephants from the Wild Animal Park that were mentally degraded and euthanized at the Zoo this week may have presented with some form of dementia independent of aluminum and fluoride in their water. However, there is little doubt that the massive amounts of aluminum and fluoride, ingested together that causes uptake into brain, hastened their complete demise.  The abnormal tau proteins synthesized in brain in human dementia for unknown reasons have very high affinity for aluminum. Many Alzheimer’s victims have aluminum in large concentrations in brain at time of death.

Nevertheless, the Alzheimer’s Association currently does not know the cause of the high incidence of Alzheimer’s in the U.S. or why San Diego leads the nation in this category of death per capita.  It is no longer assumed by this organization that aluminum is the causative agent. San Diego Water facilities indeed do not inject their own aluminum but report levels on water quality reports.  Metroplitan Water, Los Angeles has injected aluminum as a clarifying agent long before fluoride injections were begun that enhance aluminum assimilation. However, the city of San Diego and Escondido are fully culpable for contributing to the demise of these prize animals by providing no option other than water treated with fluoride that also contained aluminum. There is little doubt that aluminum uptake in brain enhanced the mental condition the animals suffered. Aluminum taken up into the brain where it does not belong cannot hide to exert zero effects on structure and function.  Numerous studies by Varner and coworkers over the last many decades (see Connett, Fluoride and the Brain, Chapter 15, The Case Against Fluoride, 2010) prove fluoride plus aluminm forms complexes that are asslmilated into brain that causes microscopically observed brain degeneration durign long term chronic consumption. The question is why is this seemingly not even more dramatic in the human population that what seems to exist, but remember the human brain is of very high capacity (200 billion cells per brain). Further, lack of effect is merely an impression, not a fact, since Alzheimer’s now is the 6th leading cause of death in the U.S. (North County Times Jan 12, 2012) and in San Diego County is now astoundingly 3rd!!

It is time to halt the inane practice of injecting industrial synthetic fluoride compounds into human drinknig water in an attempt to find a child’s cavity, when nonfluoridated Europe has experienced the same rate of decline in caries incidence that the U.S. has seen during this water ingested fluoride program. Understand again that CA AB733 was based on a false assumption, that swallowed fluoride was assumed to decrease caries, when biochemical measurements prove it cannot–it is present from swallowing in the saliva at only 0.02 ppm, unable to affect teeth topically though CA dental officials with vested interests attempt to ignore this.  And again, no protocols are provided in CA AB733; it merelyy asserts basically to go forth and fluoridate, without details of any kind, as though it were some sort of higher proclamation, when in it is a corrupt order that violates the Safe Drinking Water Act (prohibits any Federal requirement for drugs, foods, or any chemicals added otehr than to sanitize water), and the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act (requiring FDA approval for any substance used as a putative treatment in humans) and the Water Pollution Control Act (section 101a). No State law can supercede Federal laws covering public waterways that are Federal property. The Colorado River originates as far North as Wyoming, and the CA aqueduct water originates as far away as creek drainage in Southern Oregon. The Oregon State legislature barred any state requirement for fluoride in Oregon waterways, to protect salmon from the gross mental narcotic effect fluoride is known to exert that causes salmon run collapse.

As a medical research scientist and native San Diegan, I request that you order the Public Utilties Director, San Diego to stop titrating this illegal, unapproved, useless, harmful industrial substance lacking calcium into the water supply that is ingested by the innocent animals and people who reside here in our otherwise fair city.  My brother was offered the position of head computer systems operator by the San Diego Padres.  However, due to concerns over water fluoride (my brother has tooth fluorosis) he has chosen to remain employed at Stanford University and to remain in his home in Morgan Hill.  Morgan Hill is listed as a ‘fluoridated city’ but this is false. The water district chemists there stopped ordering drums of fluosilicic acid hazardous waste decades ago and refuse to inject synthetic fluorides into innocent people that, as a toxic calcium chelator, accumulates into bone permanently lifetime. Many people can remain rational about this, and I think you can do so also.

If you would like additional information to help protect citizens of San Diego from this industrial chemical taken internally, or references or letters from the CDC, FDA, CA DPH or other items, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Richard Sauerheber, Ph.D.

References:
[1] Personal communication and e-mail from Donald Nelson, while chief fluoridation officer, CA Department of Health, Sacramento, CA.
[2] Online statements of chemists at the Seattle Water District.
[3] Varner, Brain Research, 1986; Mullenix, Journal of Neurology and Teratology, 1995; Reddy, Journal of Medical and Allied
Sciences, 2011; most data reviewed in [4].
[4] Connett, P.et.al., The Case Against Fluoride, 2010.
[5] Yiamouyiannis, J., Fluoride, the Aging Factor,1986.
[6] Perry, T., Zoo Euthanizes Zoo Elephants, North County Times, reprinted from Los Angeles Times, January 7, 2012.
[7] Freedom of Information Act request answered by the Escondido Public Works Department, 2010.

Continuing, we have data from the 50 U.S. states that rank disease incidence as a function of percent of water districts that fluoridate. The data indicate yet again that water fluoridation does not influence teeth decay, but has significant associations with increased tooth fluorosis, mental retardation, cancer and cardiovascular deaths [1]. There was no correlation of increased incidence of Alzheimer’s disease with fluoridation, but cities were not separated between those that treat water also with aluminum from those that do not.

Please let me be clear.  It is possible that the elephants from the Wild Animal Park that were mentally degraded and euthanized at the Zoo this week may have presented with some form of dementia independent of aluminum and fluoride in their water. However, there is little doubt that the massive amounts of aluminum and fluoride, ingested together that causes uptake into brain, hastened their complete demise.  The abnormal tau proteins synthesized in brain in human dementia for unknown reasons have very high affinity for aluminum. Many Alzheimer’s victims have aluminum in large concentrations in brain at time of death.

The Alzheimer’s Association is currently confused and does not know the cause of the high incidence of Alzheimer’s in the U.S. or why San Diego leads the nation in this category of death per capita.  It is no longer assumed by this organization that aluminum is the causative agent. San Diego Water facilities indeed do not inject their own aluminum but report levels on water quality reports.  Metroplitan Water, Los Angeles has injected aluminum as a clarifying agent long before fluoride injections were begun that enhance aluminum assimilation, and this water is imported to North San Diego County. However, the city of San Diego and Escondido are fully culpable for contributing to the demise of these prize animals by providing no option other than water treated with fluoride that also contained aluminum. There is little doubt that aluminum uptake in brain enhanced the mental condition the animals suffered. Aluminum taken up into the brain where it does not belong cannot hide to exert zero effects on structure and function.  Numerous studies by Varner and coworkers over the last many decades [2] prove fluoride plus aluminum forms AlF3 complexes that are asslmilated into brain that cause microscopically observed brain degeneration during long term chronic consumption. The question is why is this seemingly not more dramatic in the human population than what seems to exist, but remember the human brain is of very high capacity (200 billion cells per brain). Further, lack of effect is merely an impression, not a fact, since Alzheimer’s now is the 6th leading cause of death in the U.S. [3] and in San Diego County is now astoundingly 3rd [4]!!  The time to death after Alzheimer’s first appears is relatively quick in many cases and there remains no cure.

It is time to halt the inane practice of injecting industrial synthetic fluoride compounds into human drinking water in an attempt to find a child’s cavity, when nonfluoridated Europe has experienced the same rate of decline in caries incidence that the U.S. has seen during this water ingested fluoride program [5]. Understand again that CA AB733 was based on a false assumption, that swallowed fluoride was assumed to decrease caries, when biochemical measurements prove it cannot–it is present from swallowing in the saliva at only 0.02 ppm [6], unable to affect teeth topically though CA dental officials with vested interests attempt to ignore this [7].  And again, no protocols are provided in CA AB733; it merelyy asserts basically to ‘go forth and fluoridate’, without details of any kind, as though it were some sort of higher proclamation, when it is a corrupt order that violates the Safe Drinking Water Act (which prohibits any Federal requirement for drugs, supplements, or any chemicals added other than to sanitize water), the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act (requires FDA approval for any substance used as a putative treatment in humans) and the Water Pollution Control Act (section 101a). No State law can be legally binding that attempts to supercede these and other Federal laws covering public waterways that are Federal property. The Colorado River originates as far North as Western Wyoming (WindRiver Mountain Range), and CA aqueduct water originates as far North as creek drainage in Southern Oregon. The Oregon State legislature barred any State requirement for fluoride in Oregon waterways, to protect salmon from the known gross mental narcotic effect fluoride exerts that causes salmon run collapse.

As a medical research scientist and native San Diegan, I request that you order the Public Utilties Director, San Diego to stop titrating this illegal, unapproved, useless, harmful industrial substance lacking calcium into the water supply that is ingested by the innocent animals and people who reside here in our otherwise fair city.  My brother was offered the position of head computer systems operator by the San Diego Padres.  However, due to concerns over water fluoride (my brother has slight tooth fluorosis from a one-time Luride dose) he has chosen to remain in his home in Morgan Hill, CA. Morgan Hill is listed as a ‘fluoridated city’ but this is false. The water district chemists there stopped ordering drums of fluosilicic acid hazardous waste decades ago and refuse to inject synthetic fluorides into innocent people that, as a toxic calcium chelator, accumulates into bone permanently lifetime. Many people can remain rational about this, and I think you can also.

Richard Sauerheber, Ph.D.

References:
[1] Dr. Osmunson, presenter, International Fluoride Conference, Toronto,Canada, 2008
[2] Varner, Brain Research,1986 reviewed at www.fluoridealert.org and in
[3] North County Times, Jan 12, 2012
[4] Signon San Diego, 2010.
[5] Connett, et.al., The Case Against Fluoride, Chelsea Green Publishing, Vermont, 2010.
[6] National Research Council, Report on Fluoride in Drinking Water, a Scientifc Review of EPA’s Standards, Washington, D.C., 2006.
[7] personal communication with Dr. Kathleen Thiessen, co-athor of reference [6].

12-2-12

With a 40% infant mortality in elephants in U.S. Zoos, and with most of the deaths before age 20 being attributed to musculoskelatal disorders, it seems fluoride would be logically playing a role. These animals consume 60 gallons every day of fluoridated water and the longer residence time in the animal (because of sheer size and length of blood vessels between gut and kidney for example) would argue that a relatively high rate of bone accumulation occurs over that in other species.

Richard

From Dr. Sauerheber:

San Diego Fluorosilicic Acid Update
While most San Diegans are getting used to drinking water treated with diluted industrial fluorosilic acid, many continue to oppose these artificial infusions. In discussions at the Zoo, administrators and caretakers, who prefer to remain anonymous, do not support or authorize the fluoridation of animals residing there, particularly certain exotic sensitive species.  On the other hand, it is too much to expect Zoo officials to complain and accept the risk that entails.

Most all the Zoo animals drink municipal water. Amphibians however have long been provided city water that is further purified wtih reverse osmosis, since these creatures cannot live normally with chemicals in water due to ease of permeation through skin.  After fluoridation began last year, the pollutant-sensitive gharial alligators developed illness and one died, but veterinarians were quoted as not knowing the precise cause. The other gharial lived and is now housed at the San Antonio Zoo, to be re-admitted to San Diego in August. This time though to be safer, that water will be RO purified and also mixed with 10% seawater. The very high calcium content will protect these animals from fluoride, and RO removes the slilic acid that can cause silicosis of liver in alligators that live in silicofluoridated soft water, as published in detailed studies by the scientific journal Fluoride. Construction and water pipe repairing is now ongoing at the enclosure.  It is also comforting to see that each elephant is fed about 5 gallons daily of celery, to avoid weight gain, where celery is a good source of  calcium, the antidote to fluoride poisoning.

The U.S. Health and Human Services last year requested that water fluoride be lowered to 0.7 ppm because 41% of all U.S. teeens aged 12-15 developed abnormal permanent tooth fluorosis from fluoridated water at 1 ppm average, as of 2004.  In compliance, the fluoride level in water provided to the Zoo was lowered to 0.6 ppm, as verified this week. This is a good start and is also the level currently used by the Los Angeles Metropolitan Water District soon after a lawsuit was filed in Federal Court over the fact that fluorosilicic acid is not FDA approved to be taken internally through ingestion in the U.S.  In addition, a petition to ban industiral fluoride infusions in all U.S. waters was accepted by the FDA in 2007 for review and remains pending.

City officials are reluctant to discuss the issue. Attorney and Mayoral candidate Bonniee Dumanis wrote, after a cursory examination, the opinion that nothing illegal is being done. Cnadidate Bob Filner stated that fluoridation is probably a large waste of money.  Candidate Carl DeMaio thought about looking into the legality of the funding for the infusions from First Five tobacco taxes, but after one year has not obtained a tangible result that is known to us.

Richard Sauerheber, Ph.D. Chemistry