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

July 14, 2012

To Everett City Council and to Snohomish Health District:

I am writing to supplement the comments of James Robert Deal, which were delivered to the Snohomish Health District and the Everett City Council posted at:

https://www.fluoride-class-action.com/press-releases/7-10-12

Fluorine the element does not exist on earth. Fluoride the ion is found naturally in minerals, usually coupled with antidote calcium. Fluoride ion is indestructible and chemically unreactive, but instead is either attached to other substances or dissolved free of, but accompanied with, that substance in water.  Synthetic industrial fluoride is stripped away from natural antidote calcium and is replaced by another substance, depending on source material used, such as sodium, arsenic, silicic acid, etc.

Fluoride, independent of its carrier, is not a mineral nutrient (FDA, 1963) and does not belong in the bloodstream, having no physiologic role to play in any living organism or cell. The FDA properly ruled that fluoride artificially infused into water is an uncontrolled use of an unapproved drug that lacks clinical trials in human volunteers for either saftey or effectiveness. Natural calcium fluoride, upon which the correlation with tooth decay was made in 1939 that is still believed by today’s promoters, is not used to treat water. The fluoride source was switched without FDA approval to sodium fluoride in 1945 and switched again to fluorosilicic acid mixed with caustic soda, now in wide use.  Fluoride in calcium-deficient water is a listed poison because of the unusually low levels causing serious poisoning, while fluoride in the ocean accompanied with high levels of calcium (calcium fluoride) is not a listed toxic. Fluoridated soft water during unexpected overfeeds have killed, in Hooper Bay, Alaska, in Illinois and in Maryland. Caries can be prevented or reduced with simple methods that do not compromise the cleanliness and composition of one’s bloodstream.

On one hand, I sympathize with the Council who feel no need to investigate current scientific research, since 70% of all U.S. water disticts infuse fluorosilicic acid into city water supplies by request of dental officials. It is simplest to go with the flow and infuse it because ‘everyone does it’ or because ‘it’s endorsed’.  However on the other hand, it is wrong for any city Council to claim that ‘the facts are all in’, so thus anyone opposing the infusions can talk all day long and nothing will be changed and none of their concerns will be addressed to help them in their cause. To move forward, Council needs to have a dialogue with its citizens to explain precisely why fluoride when ingested from industrial fluorosilcic acid in water is in the blood not harmful to anyone in Everett, even though the natural protective calcium level in the water is extremely low at 7 ppm.  The studies proving this safety must be provided to the citizens asking for it, rather than merely listening to citizens by requirement and then proceeding anyway to fluoridate because ‘we’re told to do it’. A spoiled child defends actions by saying they were ‘told to do it’ and that ‘everyone does it’.

Specifically, Council needs to determine and inform all citizens what fluoride level is present in the blood and the saliva of people who consume their water product. Council needs to inform citizens what % reduction in tooth decay will occur through consumption of their product even though the water contains only 7 ppm calcium. Council needs to demonstrate that aluminum (now at 0.08 ppm in Everett water) and fluoride at 1 ppm in water, with protective antidote calcium at only 7 ppm, does not cause aluminum incorporation into brain, even though this has been amply demonstrated in research animals given drinking water with precisely these levels of aluminum and fluoride together, without calcium in the water.

It is improper for any city Council person, who orders a city infuse industrial fluorides to treat citizens, to merely respond to the concerns of a citizen body by saying ‘we’ve heard enough’. The Council needs to explain why industrial fluoride without calcium is effective and why they believe it to be harmless when consumed continuously for many years (even by the infirm) even though protective calcium is lacking in Everett water. Otherwise, citizens opposing it on scientific grounds will always return until those questions are addressed. Endorsements from others who say ‘it is safe and effective’ have no value. Simplot, supplier of this stew of harmful chemicals, disclaims all liability. Only the Everett City Council is liable because it is the only party which authorizes the poisoning. As the purveyor of the poison, it is incumbent on Everett to provide the detailed data would would prove so-called fluoridation as “safe, effective, and legal”.

Hint:  In reality the good name of the CDC is being used by dental officials within the organization in the Oral Health Division to promote industrial fluoride ingestion regardless of whether protective calcium is persent in the water or not, even though such action is prohibited by the Safe Drinking Water Act and even though CDC scientists do not promote it. EPA does not endorse it and in fact EPA scientists oppose it. The NRC does NOT support fluoridation, in spite of claims made by Dr. Goldbaum who  presumes this is the case. The NRC Committe ruled unaminously (NRC, 2006) after intensive review of current scientific data that fluoride levels now allowed by the EPA in water are not protective of human health and must be lowered. NRC reported that saliva, that bathes teeth, contains only 0.02 ppm fluoride when ingested from water, which is unable to affect teeth topically, while fluoride in toothpaste is 1,500 ppm, 75,000 times higher than in saliva. All fluoride litearture that promotes the infusion and ingestion of fluoride to ‘prevent teeth decay’ do not properly consider this fact. Anecdotal studies were first used to promote the infusions and still are so used. The early correlations in 1939 of fluoride on teeth decay were always correlations only, never actually cause-effect related.  CDC (MMWR, Aug 2001) also proved that fluoride from the bloodstream does NOT decrease dental caries, and that its effects at best are topical. In fact, fluoride from the bloodstream in infants impedes enamel formation and causes tooth fluorosis in those unlucky children forced to consume fluoridated water during teeth development years who had insufficient dietary calcium to protect the enamel from the damage fluoride caused.  41% of U.S. teens suffer from enamel hypoplasia caused by ingested fluoride mostly from treated water. This is why HHS recently requested fluoride be lowered while final updated regulations are being developed.

It is absurd to dismiss those opposing fluoride ingestion from that artificially infused into public soft water supplies when these are the facts, without a detailed explicit explanation why the Council feels, in spite of these data, that the treatments should continue because they have proof that its ingestion is safe for all, even the infirmed, and effective. Moreover, the volume of fluoride added is 99% wasted down drains and never ingested. It is more efficient and economical to add fluorosilcic acid caustic soda into drinking water only. A single tanker truckload of the substance would last this way for many years if it were only added into the drinking water. There must be a way to provide such water to the segment of the city that desires it, and the Council is honor-bound to figure this out, instead of spending time evading public comments on the issue.

Fluorotic bone is grossly thickened and covered with pathologic spicules of calcium fluoride deposits. This only occurs when an industrial fluoride is not too concentrated to be acutely poisonous, by ingesting small amounts of fluoride lifetime. This is what fluoridation is now doing progressively to citizens in the U.S. in fluoridated cities, but in particular in cities where the water supply lacks protective calcium that would otherwise minimize assimilation of the ion from the GI tract.
This practice will one day be halted and only those who retain their anecdotal correlations to the end will obtain their own fluoride to drop into their own drinking water. It is the right way, protecting citizens from being treated with unnecessary chemicals or drugs that a few want, while at the same time allowing them to practice their belief to consume it if they so desire.
Sincerely yours,

Richard Sauerheber, Ph.D. Chemistry