Richard Sauerheber, Ph.D.
B.A. Biology, Ph.D. Chemistry, University of California, San Diego
Palomar College, 1140 W. Mission Rd., San Marcos
Email: richsauerheb@hotmail.com  Phone: 760-744-2547 home or 760-744-1150 x 2448 work
February 26, 2012

Dr. Iain McIntyre, Chief Toxicologist
San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office

Dear Dr. McIntyre,

Thank you very much for providing information on your article on difluorethane for today’s newspaper (“Air duster blamed in sudden deaths; compressed gas [fluoro-ethane] turning up in more autopsies in San Diego County”.  MSDS sheets compiled from studies with normal healthy animals state “no toxicity” even at very high inhaled concentrations. However, rats are less sensitive to fluoride assimilation than humans, requiring usually 20 times higher fluoride concentrations to achieve a comparable human blood fluoride level for not-understood reasons.  Since a certain % of fluoroethane is metabolized after inhalation to carbon dioxide and a fluoride, it may be those who are ill or have atherosclerotic plaque in brain or coronary arteries, that would be sensitive to breathing the gas.  Fluoride incorporation into plaque might dislodge a small particle could cause a lung embolism for example.

Dr. Yuxin at the Veterans Administration (VA) Health Care Center in Los Angeles last month reported definitive proof that systemic fluoride ion incorporates directly into plaque in coronary arteries and the aorta of cardiovascular disease patients (Nuclear Medicine Communications, January, 2012).* There is no doubt about this, where a fluoride isotope was monitored directly with PET scans. Our Nation’s worst fluoridated water disaster occurred in Hooper Bay, Alaska when a pump valve corroded into an overfeed where 302 people were lifeflighted to a hospital with one death due to heart blockage. The fluoride level in the blood indeed matched the calculated level that causes precipitation of calcium ion necessary for the normal heart beat. The blood level that causes heart arrest lethality is in the 3 ppm range (Merck Index).

For your information, another part of the problem is that toxicity due to exposure to difluoroethane would also be logically greater in persons who consume lots of fluoridated water.  North County and parts of San Diego began accepting Metropolitan Water District water treated with industrial fluorosilicic acid (H2SiF6) in 2007. The National Research Council (2006) reported that bone accumulates fluoride pathologically permanently from 1 ppm fluoride water to 2,500 ppm in only two years, which renders the plasma level, during continuous consumption, at a higher level, more difficult to remove by the kidneys, compared to when bone has not yet been fluoridated.

The blood fluoride level in San Diego citizens who drink city water (0.21 ppm) is 500% higher than the level present before fluosilicic acid injections began in 2011. This itself diminishes the metabolic detoxification of any fluoride source, including difluoroethane gas. San Diego Water began industrial fluorosilicic acid injections into all water supplies last year (even though the citizens voted twice against it) and even though we now know systemic fluoride crosses the blood brain barrier (Reddy, 2011; Connett, The Case Against Fluoride, 2010).

It is disturbing that even though only studies done with normal healthy animals were done (which were also absent brain function measurements), that industry recommended the widespread use of difluoroethane for any and all humans, unhealthy or not, allergic or not, etc.  I will relay your article to the San Diegans for Safe Drinking Water group (www.sdsdw.org) who are committed to ending all forced industrial fluoride ingestion by humans via public water supplies against their expressed will. The State bill to treat water with industrial fluoride without FDA approval was forced upon the Legislature by dental officials, but of course is a violation of the Federal Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974, and the bill does not mention industrial fluorosilcic acid as a useable source for fluoride.

One day these useless unhealthy injections will be eliminated from this Nation’s water supplies, but presently San Diego city officials refuse to consider or discuss this as a possibility yet.  No fluoride compound has ever been approved for ingestion by the FDA. We currently have a petition to the FDA to ban all water industrial fluoride injections for the U.S., where ingested fluoride has been proven not to lower teeth caries (Connett, 2010), which was its intended purpose when the injections began in 1945.  Metropolitan Water District, Los Angeles is also under litigation in Federal Court for disseminating industrial fluorides to consumers without a prescription and without FDA approval.

Thanks for your attention,

Richard Sauerheber, Ph.D.

*Yuxin, L., et.al., Association of vascular fluoride uptake with vascular calcification and coronary artery disease, Nuclear Medicine Communications: January 2012 – Volume 33 – Issue 1 – p 14–20