JAMES ROBERT DEAL ATTORNEY PLLC
PO Box 2276, Lynnwood, Washington 98036-2276
Telephone 425-771-1110, Fax 425-776-8081
James@JamesRobertDeal.com
NOTICE OF LIABILITY TO SEATTLE
FOR WATER CONTAMINATION
NOTICE TO CONSULT WITH INSURANCE CARRIER
August 8, 2011
Mike McGinn, Mayor
City of Seattle
PO Box 94749
Seattle, WA 98124-4749
Seattle City Council
PO Box 34025
Seattle, WA 98124-4025
Hand Delivered
kim.garrett@seattle.gov; Peter.Holmes@seattle.gov; darby.ducomb@seattle.gov; kimberly.mills@seattle.gov; josh.fogt@seattle.gov; richard.conlin@seattle.gov; sally.bagshaw@seattle.gov; tim.burgess@seattle.gov; sally.clark@seattle.gov; jean.godden@seattle.gov; bruce.harrell@seattle.gov; nick.licata@seattle.gov; mike.obrien@seattle.gov; tom.rasmussen@seattle.gov; mike.mcginn@seattle.gov;
This letter is posted on the Internet to make it easier to follow links:
https://www.fluoride-class-action.com/wp-content/uploads/notice-of-liability-to-seattle-8-8-11.doc
Dear Mayor McGinn and City Council Members:
I am the president of Fluoride Class Action and the vice-president of Washington Action for Safe Water. I write this letter on behalf of Fluoride Class Action. Many of the members of Fluoride Class Action and Washington Action for Safe Water live in Seattle or drink Seattle water.
You have heard all your lives that fluoridation prevents cavities. The CDC, EPA, and Surgeon General all endorse fluoridation and say it is effective and does no harm. But endorsements prove nothing. Scientific and medical journal articles are proof. I am delivering some of the proof to you today.
CDC and EPA in January proposed to lower fluoride added to water from a typical 1.0 ppm down to .7 ppm, a 30% reduction. They did this because the Beltran-Aguilar study, published on the CDC website, showed that 41% of kids 12-15 had some level of fluorosis, that 8.6% had moderate fluorosis (brown spots), and that 3.6% had severe fluorosis (brown spots with pitting and chalky teeth).
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db53.pdf
The monetary damages for veneers for these kids would be around $50,000 over the course of their lives. CDC admits liability and admits the number of kids who are permanently marred, making this the perfect class action or mass toxic tort case.
CDC wants to lower fluoride added by 30%. That would reduce the percentage of kids with all levels of fluorosis from 41% to 28%. It would lower the percentage with moderate fluorosis from 8.6% to 6.0%, and the percentage with severe fluorosis from 3.6% to 2.5%.
Fluoride Class Action, assisted by several scientists, replied to the CDC and EPA request for comment on this plan, saying that the amount of fluoride which should be added to drinking water should be zero.
https://www.fluoride-class-action.com/hhs/report-card-for-hhs
https://www.fluoride-class-action.com/hhs/comments-re-lead.
Health and Human Services says:
From the early 1970’s to the present, the prevalence of dental caries in at least one permanent tooth … among adolescents, aged 12 – 17 years, has decreased from 90% to 60% and the average number of teeth affected by dental caries … from 6.2 to 2.6. … Among adults, aged 35 – 44 years, the average number of affected teeth decreased from 18 in the early 1960’s to 10 among adults, aged 35 – 49 years ….
http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2011pres/01/pre_pub_frn_fluoride.html
Brunnelle said in the Journal of Dental Research:
Children who had always been exposed to community water fluoridation had mean DMFS [decayed, missing, and filled surfaces] scores about 18% lower than those who had never lived in fluoridated communities.
http://www.fluoridealert.org/health/teeth/caries/nidr-dmfs.html
The CDC, the main promoter of fluoridation, admits the following:
[L]laboratory and epidemiologic research suggests that fluoride prevents dental caries predominately after eruption of the tooth into the mouth, and its actions primarily are topical for both adults and children.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4841a1.htm
If you want to avoid sunburn, would you eat your sunscreen? No? Then why would you drink your fluoride?
Tooth decay has declined since fluoridation began, but that does not prove that fluoridation caused the decline. The proof of that is that tooth decay has declined just as much or more in non-fluoridated European countries as in the United States.
http://www.fluoridealert.org/health/teeth/caries/who-dmft.aspx
The probable causes for the decline in caries are improvements in diet and in oral hygiene.
One has to ask, if fluoride is as effective at preventing tooth decay as its supporters say, why does it not reduce decay rates to zero? Even if fluoride did reduce tooth decay by 18%, as its supporters say, is it a fair trade to give 41% of the kids dental fluorosis?
Why do we fluoridate? There are two reasons. First is the mythical reason, that it is good for teeth. Second is the real reason, to offload millions of gallons of toxic waste. The EPA in 1983 admitted this.
The fluoride used by Seattle is the cheap, commercial, toxic waste silicofluoride that comes from phosphate fertilizer production. It would cost fertilizer companies dearly to dispose of it. Instead they turn it into a profit center.
The silicofluoride used comes from Florida, Louisiana, Mexico, China, and other countries.
Of the three fluorides which have been or are used as fluoridation chemicals, naturally occurring calcium fluoride is the most pure and the least toxic; sodium fluoride is industrial grade but usually fairly pure; while the silicofluorides are industrial grade toxic waste which contain lead, arsenic, and a host of elements and compounds, and which ionizes in a way that creates hydrogen fluoride, which readily dissolves lead out of pipes. Sodium fluoride and the silicofluorides are referred to as artificial fluorides because they do not occur in nature and are man made.
The National Sanitation Foundation, known as NSF, explains that silicofluorides come primarily from phosphate fertilizer production.
https://www.fluoride-class-action.com/wp-content/uploads/NSF-fact-sheet-on-fluoride-2008.pdf
George Glasser, investigative journalist, explained that the phosphate ore contains heavy metals, lead, arsenic, fluoride, uranium, polonium, and pretty much every element on the periodic table.
Certain populations are more susceptible to harm from silicofluorides – kidney patients, diabetics, Blacks, Hispanics, the poor in general, those who drink more water than average, the fluoride sensitized, and infants. Infants drink 2.5 to 4.0 times as much fluids as adults in proportion to body weight. Some people drink ten times the average amount of water, and so the fluoride dose cannot be controlled.
Mother’s milk is best for infants and young children because it is virtually fluoride free – between 4 ppb and 10 ppb. Seattle was fluoridating its water at 1,000 ppb (1 ppm) until it recently reduced the level to 800 ppb (.8 ppm).
The American Dental Association recommends that formula not be made using fluoridated tap water on a regular basis.
CDC makes the same recommendation.
http://www.cdc.gov/fluoridation/safety/infant_formula.htm
Why do ADA and CDC recommend that infant consumption of fluoride be kept low? Because they can no longer deny that artificial fluorides cause fluorosis. Nevertheless, they still ignore other harms, as if fluoride taken orally somehow magically went directly to the teeth and only to the teeth.
Fluoride is the anion of fluorine. Fluorine is the most active of the halogens and of all elements. Fluoride inhibits thyroid function through mechanisms that are not yet fully delineated. By whatever mechanism it happens, fluoride definitely lessens the ability of the thyroid to do its job and causes hypothyroidism. In a population with epidemic levels of obesity and diabetes, it is absurd that we are making people hypothyroid in addition.
http://www.fluoridealert.org/fluoride-dangers/health/thyroid/index.aspx
https://www.fluoride-class-action.com/wp-content/uploads/carol-clinch-2009-fluoride-and-kidneys.pdf
Fluoride affects Blacks, Hispanics, and the poor disproportionately. Why are these groups more sensitive? A high calcium diet with lots of vegetables and milk can partially counter the ravages of fluoridation. Minorities eat less vegetables. Blacks tend to be lactose intolerant and do not drink as much milk. One of the few good things you can say about homogenized, pasteurized, hormone added, mass produced cow’s milk, is that it contains very little fluoride, just like mother’s milk, and it contains calcium which buffers the effect of fluoride.
Blacks and Hispanics have more dental fluorosis and more moderate and severe dental fluorosis:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5403a1.htm (see Table 5)
The kidneys are the main organ for excretion of fluoride. However, fluoride gradually builds up in the kidneys and at the same time diminishes the kidneys’ ability to excrete fluoride. At some point the slow downward drift accelerates into a faster and faster death spiral. The patient has to go on dialysis.
https://www.fluoride-class-action.com/wp-content/uploads/carol-clinch-2009-fluoride-and-kidneys.pdf
The National Research Council said in its 2006 NRC Report on Fluoride:
[A] potentially susceptible subpopulation comprises individuals with renal impairments who retain more fluoride than healthy people do.
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11571&page=9
Kidneys are not fully developed at birth, so an infant’s ability to excrete fluoride is less than that of a healthy adult.
http://pedsinreview.aappublications.org/content/14/2/local/back-matter.pdf
According to the 2006 NRC Report on Fluoride, when an infant and adult drink water fluoridated at 1.0 ppm, the infant will retain .07 mgF/kg/day, while an adult will retain only .031 mgF/kg/day, that is milligrams of fluoride per kilogram of body weight per day.
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11571&page=65
And we should not overlook the fluoride sensitized. The 2006 NRC Report on Fluoride says that around 1.0% of the population experience “GI injury, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain” when drinking water is fluoridated at 1 ppm.
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11571&page=269
Dr. Bruce Spittle reports on numerous verifiable clinical cases in which people who started drinking fluoridated water developed severe symptoms such as “spastic bowels, frequent nausea and vomiting, bloating of the stomach, and persistent migraine-like headaches”.
https://www.fluoride-class-action.com/wp-content/uploads/appendix-b-bruce-spittle-fluoride-fatigue2.pdf page 10 ff.
These fluoride sensitized people sometimes must move to a non-fluoridated community. If they continue to live in a fluoridated community, they must be careful not to drink tap water, cook with it, and in some cases bathe in it.
It is theorized that people become sensitized when they are overexposed to fluoride, particularly as children. Sensitized people have confessed to me that as children they locked themselves in the bathroom and ate toothpaste “because it tasted so good”. This is why no one with children should keep fluoridated toothpaste in the home. The FDA should enact a regulation requiring that fluoridated toothpaste not taste good.
There are other problems with fluoridation. Silicofluorides contain lead, and they leach lead out of brass pipes, fittings, and solder that contain lead. This is a special problem in Seattle. Today’s brass pipes are 8.0% lead. Before 1986 brass pipes were 30% lead or more.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass
https://www.fluoride-class-action.com/hhs/comments-re-lead
Blood lead levels are higher in fluoridated communities.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11233755?dopt=Abstract
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0161813X07000459
Fluoride causes more harm when the water is soft, that is when it contains little calcium and other minerals, which is true of Seattle’s snow melt water.
NSF says we should not worry because the lead level in the raw scrubber liquor is low, sometimes only .6 ppb, sometimes 1.6 ppb.
https://www.fluoride-class-action.com/wp-content/uploads/nsf-fact-sheet-fluoride-20001.pdf
However, no amount of lead added to water is acceptable. The smallest amounts can be harmful.
Moreover, there is a bigger problem when it comes to lead and fluoride: Silicofluorides, the type of fluoridation materials used in Seattle, leach lead out of pipes, fittings, and solder, particularly in older buildings with pipes which contain more lead.
Lead melts at a lower temperature than copper, zinc, aluminum, or the other components of brass, and so it migrates to the surface, thus increasing the potential for lead leaching even when the lead component of brass is low.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass#Applications
It was discovered in 2004 that tap water in Seattle schools was up to 1,600 ppb lead.
The MCL maximum contaminant level for lead is 20 ppb (far too high), and the MCLG maximum contaminant level goal is zero.
This is a very serious matter. Federal law requires Seattle to send out lead notices when there are indications of lead problems. Seattle has ignored this law. It has dropped any inquiry into the cause of high lead levels in schools and “swept it under the rug”. In everything written about Seattle’s lead problem, there has never been one single mention of any possible connection between fluoridation and lead levels. It is politically dangerous to oppose fluoridation, and so the connection has been suppressed.
In tort law when one violates a statute and the plaintiff can prove the violation caused him harm, that is what we call a per se violation. It makes a plaintiff’s case easier to prove.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/42/usc_sec_42_00000300—g006-.html
What are the harms? Lead penetrates every cell in the body and is highly toxic. One of the effects of lead is to lower intelligence. Fluoride dissolves lead in pipes. There are now 24 well structured scientific studies which show that there is a positive correlation between fluoride levels in water and lower IQ. That sounds like a good class action suit. We are dumbing down our own children and grandchildren.
http://www.fluoridealert.org/iq.studies.html
The commercial toxic waste grade of fluoride which Seattle uses also contains arsenic. NSF reports that 43 percent of tanker truck loads of silicofluoride contain arsenic, and that after dilution into drinking water the arsenic level can be up to .6 ppb.
https://www.fluoride-class-action.com/wp-content/uploads/NSF-fact-sheet-on-fluoride-2008.pdf
Arsenic is a poison and a known, Type 1, Class A, human carcinogen. The smallest amount can sicken or kill in many ways.
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/substances/toxsubstance.asp?toxid=3
http://www.fluoridealert.org/f-arsenic.htm
I have discussed the lead and arsenic issue in greater detail in a response sent to HHS and EPA.
https://www.fluoride-class-action.com/hhs/comments-re-lead.
Finally I want to talk about the biggest shame of all, the way Seattle has allowed itself to be tricked into slowly poisoning its own people, corroding its pipes and shortening their effective life, and paying out $800,000 of our tax dollars each year to do so.
Washington law allows fluoridation only if the fluoride is NSF approved under the NSF Standard 60. WAC 246-290-220(3).
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/wac/default.aspx?cite=246-290-220
NSF is a trade organization. The large chemical companies serve on its board, the same chemical companies which produce the artificial silicofluorides. NSF fraudulently presents fluoride as safe and effective. NSF states repeatedly in its 2008 NSF Fact Sheet on Fluoridation Chemicals:
The NSF Joint Committee … consists of … product manufacturing representatives. … Standard 60 … requires a toxicology review to determine that the product is safe at its maximum use level and to evaluate potential contaminations in the product. … A toxicology evaluation of test results is required to determine if any contaminant concentrations have the potential to cause adverse human health effects. … NSF also requires annual testing and toxicological evaluation …. The NSF standard requires … toxicological evaluation.
https://www.fluoride-class-action.com/wp-content/uploads/NSF-fact-sheet-on-fluoride-2008.pdf
In the NSF 60 book itself NSF says the same thing.
https://www.fluoride-class-action.com/wp-content/uploads/NSF-60-excerpts2.pdf
However, NSF does not receive toxicological studies from the fertilizer companies, nor does it do toxicological studies itself. See an email which NSF sent me, telling me to ask the EPA for toxicological studies:
When Stan Hazan, NSF official, was put under oath, he admitted that NSF was not following its own rules and that there were no toxicological studies.
https://www.fluoride-class-action.com/wp-content/uploads/appendix-e-stan-hazen-deposition1.pdf, 6:13-17; 7:14-25; 12:1-11; 12:1-11; 18:5-7, 17-25; 19:1-10; 20:1-9; 21:1-10, 17-22; 35:3-7; 39:11 – 40:4; 42:10-15; 50:1-15; 53:7-10; 54:19 – 55:5; 64:13-17
NSF functions as a sham agency. It approves and certifies silicofluorides as safe. In doing so it usurps the role of the FDC.
https://www.fluoride-class-action.com/sham
Seattle has been defrauded.
http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=42652E035A1B1BAAAE1F340B54694975
The law requiring that fluoride be NSF Standard 60 certified is not being followed by NSF itself. Therefore, the fluoridation materials do not meet the requirements of state law. According to Washington law, fluoridation must cease.
Fluoride is not a mere additive such as chlorine. Chlorine kills bacteria. Chlorine evaporates out of water overnight if left in an open pitcher. Fluoride is intended as medication and delivered without informed consent and with no way to control the dose or the number of months and years people consume it.
Seattle should be very concerned about legal liability. It should put an immediate moratorium on fluoridation.
For all these reasons, I am putting the City of Seattle on notice that it faces potential liability in connection with the lead, arsenic, fluoride, and other contaminants which the water department adds to drinking water as part of its fluoridation program. The coming lawsuits could be costly to the City, so please act accordingly.
It is important that the City consult with City Attorney Peter Holmes and with its insurance carrier to inquire as to whether it will be covered when the class action and mass toxic tort actions come. Suits over the fluoride, lead, and arsenic added to drinking water will be a growth industry for lawyers.
The City of Seattle can reduce its liability by putting a moratorium on water fluoridation, and the sooner the City does so the better.
If the City fails to review the scientific evidence on fluoridation, such as the documents referenced in this letter, this will constitute reckless indifference to the harms Seattle is causing to those who drink its water and will increase the City’s liability.
James Robert Deal, Attorney WSBA Number 8103 President, http://Fluoride-Class-Action.com
