Richard Sauerheber,Ph.D.
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
October 6, 2012
Snohomish Health District BoardAttention: Program and Planning Committee 3020 Rucker Street, Suite 306
Everett, WA 98201-3971
Dear Public Servants:
The Powerpoint file presented by Dr. Goldbaum contains many incorrect statements and many half-truths.
Dr. Goldbaum states that lead levels are not increased by fluoridating the water. This is only a reasonable statement within experimental error, it is not the actual entire truth. Yes, the added fertilizer discard material fluorosilicic acid that contains lead, when diluted properly only increases lead in the delivered water to a level too low to be detected with the instrumentation the Everett water district uses. But according to the Everett water district water quality report 2011, about 2% of household samples had lead so high in the product water that they exceeded the EPA allowed 15 ppb for water – but without actually listing what the high concentrations were that were found. See:
http://www.ci.everett.wa.us/Get_PDF.aspx?pdfID=5924).
Lead has been found in Everett taps at up to 63 ppb, an extremely high level.
Coplan, Masters, Maas and others reported higher blood lead levels in children drinking fluorosilicic acid treated water as opposed to sodium fluoride treated water. See:
NeuroToxicology 28 (2007) 1023–1031, https://www.fluoride-class-action.com/wp-content/uploads/Maas-patch-christian-coplan-Effects-of-fluoridation-and-disinfection-agent-combinations-on-lead-leaching-from-leaded-brass-parts-neurotoxicology-28-2007-1023-1031.pdf
NeuroToxicology 28 (2007) 1032–1042 https://www.fluoride-class-action.com/wp-content/uploads/coplan-masters-confirmation-of-and-explanations-for-elevated-blood-lead-and-other-disorders-in-children-exposed-to-water-disinfection-and-fluoride-chemicals-neurotoxicology-28-2007-1032.pdf
The mechanism by which fluorosilicic acid more readily dissolves lead is that fluorosilicic acid, after dilution in water down to around 1 ppm, produces about 1 ppm intact silicic acid (H4SiO4) (National Research Council, Report on Fluoride in Drinking Water, 2006 p. 53). See:
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11571&page=53
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11571&page=89
The orthosilicic acid form remains the intact acid even at alkaline pH because its dissociation constant Ka is 2 x 10-10. The intact acid exists appreciably over the pH range 7 to 10 and can dissolve lead from plumbing fixtures (2H4SiO4 + Pb(s) produces Pb2+ + H2 + 2H3SiO4–). HF to a chemist is labeled ‘weak’ acid in spite of its extreme corrosivity, and orthosilicic acid is even a weaker acid, because it remains un-ionized even at relatively high pH.
The pH at which silicic acid is neutralized (ionized) by caustic soda, so it would be unable to react with lead, is very high, above pH 11. The water quality report in Everett indicates in one box that the pH of Everett water is 7.6, but in another box it is listed at 8.2, so the average pH of Everett water may vary widely, where the acid hydrogen ion content at 7.6 is a massive 4 times higher than at 8.2. The higher the acid content, the more corrosive the water is.
Further, the aluminum level in Everett drinking water is 0.019 ppm which is unacceptable in any water supply that also contains added fluoride. Aluminum fluoride complexes form with these aluminum levels in the acidic stomach after ingestion. Although the human brain is large, any insult with aluminum no matter how small is nevertheless an abnormality and is unwarranted. No water district has the right to trade-off aluminum poisoning in order to attempt to mitigate dental caries.
Goldbaum also presented a graph that correctly demonstrates that the presence of any fluoride in water always increases the incidence of tooth fluorosis. Yes, this occurs in every city that is fluoridated, and there are no exceptions. This condition is abnormal, undesired, ugly teeth enamel hypoplasia, which is the first visible sign of fluoride poisoning, and is always also accompanied by permanent fluoride incorporation into bone.
Because fluorosis incidence is always significantly increased by fluoridation, the act of fluoridation of water itself is by definition a poisoning. Dr. Goldbaum is willing to sacrifice normal teeth enamel and produce abnormal fluorotic enamel in some children as long as caries rates might be lowered.
However, caries rates are not reduced by ingested fluoride, because the saliva level of fluoride in a person drinking fluoridated water is so low. A person drinking water fluoridated at 1 ppm has a fluoride blood level of only .2 ppm and a fluoride salivary level of only 0.02 ppm. Compare this to the 1,500 ppm fluoride in toothpages: The fluoride saliva level is 75,000 times lower than the fluoride level in toothpaste, as shown in Dr. Goldbaum’s table. Treating decay by ingesting fluoride is less effective than swatting flies with a string.
Neither physicians nor dentists are water quality professionals and have no expertise to advise the State of WA on water quality.
HHS requested lowering the fluoride to 0.7 ppm as Goldbaum pointed out, while claiming WA State law will not allow a level lower than 0.8 ppm unless HHS makes the 0.7 ppm recommendation ‘official’. But HHS will never make (and can never make) any fluoride level ‘official’, because the FDA ruled that fluoride is not a mineral nutrient and in water is an uncontrolled use of an unapproved drug. See:
FDA has never approved any fluoride compound to be taken internally in the United States. The HHS .7 ppm recommendation was not an allowance or an “endorsement recommendation” as Goldbaum surmises; it was a warning that unless levels are lowered to 0.7, adverse health effects will be found at undesirable significant levels in those who consume it. To help counter the problem, namely the epidemic of abnormal tooth fluorosis in the U.S., the recommendation was made to minimize fluoride additions to a level that promoters already deem acceptable for themselves. This was a negotiation, a “recommendation warning” that if you are going to fluoridate anyway, at least use the lowest level you already allow. The “recommendation warning” was not meant to endorse, promote, request or give license to fluoridate. HHS cannot assign an official allowed level because the Safe Drinking Water Act prohibits any Federal requirement for any amount of any substance in water other than to sanitize the water. See 42 USC 300g-1(b)(11)[3]:
No national primary drinking water regulation may require the addition of any substance for preventive health care purposes unrelated to contamination of drinking water.”
HHS knows this, but Dr. Goldbaum apparently does not. One man’s “recommendation warning” to use the least possible amount of a poison (if you’re going to drink it anyway) is another man’s “recommendation allowance’ or license to go ahead and consume that poison: “Whoopee, drink it up. The HHS apparently now says it’s OK”.
Dr. Goldbaum continues to imply that the NRC endorses water fluoridation, by stating that the CDC has ruled that the NRC report is fully consistent with the CDC recommendations to fluoridate drinking water. This is an untruth. The NRC did not make that statement, dental officials in offices within the CDC made the claim. The NRC concluded unanimously without dissent that current allowed levels for fluoride in drinking water are not protective of human health. The NRC did not say what level would be protective, and it is presumptuous of Dr. Goldbaum to imply that any level is safe.
Adverse health effects are now widespread in U.S. cities because of fluoride in drinking water. Goldbuam also claims that the NRC only studied fluoride between 2-4 pm, and this to is an untruth. The NRC examined published adverse health effects in humans and animals over the full range of fluoride in water from near zero to 2-4 ppm and to 10 ppm. The NRC did NOT conclude that fluoride ingested from water decreases dental caries. Quite the contrary. The NRC concluded that abnormal tooth enamel fluorosis caused from ingested fluoride in water is accompanied also with fluorotic dentin teeth interiors (p. 126) where fluoride levels in dentin even exceed that in bone. See:
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11571&page=126
And significant fluorotic regions in teeth “are structurally weak” so when decay sets in “the result is often disastrous, spreading rapidly so that steps taken to repair the cavities are unsuccessful, with the tooth breaking away when attempts are made to anchor the fillings so that extraction is the only course.”
Yes, moderate dental fluorosis was intended to be kept below 15% incidence by the EPA’s MCL of 2 ppm fluoride in water, but this policy has failed. The NRC (p. 352) requested that the EPA MCLG of 4 ppm be lowered to help minimize significant abnormal bone fluorosis, and that the EPA MCL of 2 ppm be reconsidered because sadly moderate (significant) tooth fluorosis (as well as other adverse health effects seen at 1 ppm) exceeds the assumed 15% incidence that the level was supposed to prevent.
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11571&page=352
Read this letter online to make it easier to follow links. Go to:
https://www.fluoride-class-action.com/press-releases/sauerheber-to-goldbaum-10-6-12
Sincerely,
Richard Sauerheber, Ph.D.
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