Cities all over the US purchase hundreds of thousands of gallons of fresh pollution concentrate from Florida – fluorosilicic acid (H2SiF6) – to fluoridate water.
Fluorosilicic acid is composed of tetrafluorosiliciate gas and other species of fluorine gases captured in pollution scrubbers and concentrated into a 23% solution during wet process phosphate fertilizer manufacture. Generally, the acid is stored in outdoor cooling ponds before being shipped to US cities to artificially fluoridate drinking water.
Fluoridating drinking water with recovered pollution is a cost-effective means of disposing of toxic waste. The fluorosilicic acid would otherwise be classified as a hazardous toxic waste on the Superfund Priorities List of toxic substances that pose the most significant risk to human health and the greatest potential liability for manufacturers.
The resulting toxic waste cannot be diluted by 1 million or even 3 million or 10 million to 1 and dumped in the ocean or river or landfill, nor allowed to escape into the air because it would kill all the plants and animals and people. And it can’t be given away because it would still be classified as a Class I toxic waste and have to be neutralized at the highest rated hazardous waste facility at a cost of $1.40 per gallon, or more depending on how much cadmium, lead, uranium, and arsenic are also present.
But, if destined for a water district that will pay $0.35 to $0.45 per gallon for transportation, the 23% solution in industrial waste water is magically pronounced benign and shipped, untreated, to be mixed into our water.
If it was not a hazardous waste, it could have been added to salt or some other universally accessible food source, just like iodine was, more than fifty years ago. Each of us would then be free to choose for ourselves.
http://se1.com/hr/archive/floride.htm
Phosphate fertilizer suppliers have more than $10 billion invested in production and mining facilities in Florida. Phosphate fertilizer production accounts for $800 million in wages per year. Florida’s mines produce 30% of the world supply and 75% of the US supply of phosphate fertilizers. Much of the country’s supply of fluorosilicic acid for water fluoridation is also produced in Florida.
Phosphate fertilizer manufacturing and mining are not environment friendly operations. Fluorides and radionuclides are the primary toxic pollutants from the manufacture of phosphate fertilizer in Central Florida. People living near the fertilizer plants and mines, experience lung cancer and leukemia rates that are double the state average. Much of West Central Florida has become a toxic waste dump for phosphate fertilizer manufacturers. Federal and state pollution regulations have been modified to accommodate phosphate fertilizer production and use: These regulations have included using recovered pollution for water fluoridation.
Radium wastes from filtration systems at phosphate fertilizer facilities are among the most radioactive types of naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) wastes. The radium wastes are so concentrated, they cannot be disposed of at the one US landfill licensed to accept NORM wastes, so manufacturers dump the radioactive wastes in acidic ponds atop 200-foot-high gypsum stacks. The federal government has no rules for its disposal.
During the late 1960s, fluorine emissions were damaging crops, killing fish and causing crippling skeletal fluorosis in livestock. The EPA became concerned and enforced regulations requiring manufacturers to install pollution scrubbers. At that time, the facilities were dumping the concentrated pollution directly into waterways leading into Tampa Bay.
“In 1969, a massive fish kill that turned Placentia Bay, Newfoundland into “a biological desert” was traced to fluoride effluent from a plant that produced elemental phosphorus for metal finishing and consumer goods. Some 22,800 pounds of fluoride effluent poured into the bay each day, primarily in the form of hydrofluosilicic acid, the same substance used to fluoridate city water supplies” (Smith G. Why Fluoride is an Environmental Issue, Earth Island Journal).
According to US Department of Agriculture Handbook No. 380: “ Airborne fluorides have caused more worldwide damage to domestic animals than any other air pollutant.”
The handbook lists symptoms of fluoride toxicity (fluorosis) which include: dental mottling, respiratory distress, stiffness in knees and elbows or both…” and concludes by stating that “man is much more sensitive than domestic animals to F [fluoride] intoxication.”
Not Your Grandmothers Phosphate
In the late 1960s, EPA chemist Ervin Bellack worked out the ideal solution to a monumental pollution problem. Because recovered phosphate fertilizer manufacturing waste contain about 19% fluorine, Bellack concluded that the concentrated “scrubber liquor” could be a perfect water fluoridation agent. It was a liquid and easily soluble in water, unlike sodium fluoride, a waste product from aluminum manufacturing, it was also inexpensive.
Fate also intervened, the aluminum industry, which previously supplied sodium fluoride for water fluoridation, was facing a shortage of fluorspar used in smelting aluminum. Consequently, there was a shortage of sodium fluoride to fluoridate drinking water.
For the phosphate fertilizer industry, the shortage of sodium fluoride was the key to turning red ink into black and an environmental liability into a perceived asset. With the help of the EPA, fluorosilicic acid was transformed from a concentrated toxic waste and a liability into a “proven cavity fighter.”
The EPA and the US Public Health Service waived all testing procedures and – with the help of the American Dental Association (ADA) – encouraged cities to add the radioactive concentrate into America’s drinking water as an “improved” form of fluoride.
The product is not “fluorine” or “fluoride” as proponents state: It is a pollution concentrate. Fluorine is only one captured pollutant comprising about 19% of the total product.
By 1983, the official EPA policy was expressed by EPA Office of Water Deputy Administrator Rebecca Hanmer as follows: “In regard to the use of fluosilicic (fluorosilicic) acid as a source of fluoride for fluoridation, this agency regards such use as an ideal environmental solution to a long-standing problem. By recovering by-product fluosilicic acid from fertilizer manufacturing, water and air pollution are minimized, and water utilities have a low-cost source of fluoride available to them.”
Glowing Reviews
In promoting the use of the pollution concentrate as a fluoridation agent, the ADA, Federal agencies and manufacturers failed to mention that it was radioactive. Whenever uranium is found in nature as a component of a mineral, a host of other radionuclides are always found in the mineral in various stages of decay. Uranium and all of its decay-rate products are found in phosphate rock, fluorosilicic acid and phosphate fertilizer.
During wet-process manufacturing, trace amounts of radium and uranium are captured in the pollution scrubber. This process was the subject of an article by H.F. Denzinger, H. J. König and G.E. Krüger in the fertilizer industry journal, Phosphorus & Potassium (No. 103, Sept./Oct. 1979) and discussed how radionuclides are carried into the fluorosilicic acid.
While the uranium and radium in fluorosilicic acid are known carcinogens, two decay products of uranium are even more carcinogenic: radon-222 and polonium-210.
During the acidulation process that creates phosphoric acid, radon gas contained in the phosphate pebble can be released in greater proportions than other decay-rate products (radionuclides) and carried over into the fluorosilicic acid. Polonium may also be captured in greater quantities during scrubbing operations because, like radon, it can readily combine with fluoride.
In written communications to the author, EPA Office of Drinking Water official Joseph A. Cotruvo and Public Health Service fluoridation engineer, Thomas Reeves have acknowledged the presence of radionuclides in fluorosilicic acid.
Radon-222 is not an immediate threat because it stops emitting alpha radiation and decays into lead-214 in 3.86 days. Lead-214 appears to be harmless but it eventually decays into bismuth-214 and then into polonium-214. Unless someone knew to look for specific isotopes, no one would know that a transmutation into the polonium isotope had occurred.
Polonium-210, a decay product of bismuth-210, has a half-life of 138 days and gives off intense alpha radiation as it decays into regular lead and becomes stable. Any polonium-210 that might be present in the phosphate concentrate could pose a significant health threat. A very small amount of polonium-210 can be very dangerous, giving off 5,000 times more alpha radiation than the same amount of radium. As little as 0.03 microcuries (6.8 trillionths of a gram) of polonium-210 can be carcinogenic to humans.
The lead isotope behaves like calcium in the body. It may be stored in the bones for years before turning into polonium-210 and triggering a carcinogenic release of alpha radiation.
Drinking water fluoridated with fluorosilicic acid contains radon at every sequence of its decay to polonium. The fresher the pollution concentrate, the more polonium it will contain.
As long as the amount of contaminants added to the drinking water (including radionuclides in fluorosilicic acid) do not exceed the limits set forth in the Safe Drinking Water Act, the EPA has no regulatory problem with the use of any contaminated products for drinking water treatment.
Big Risks: No Tests
Despite the increased cancer risk from using phosphate waste to fluoridate drinking water, neither the EPA nor the Centers for Disease Control have ever commissioned or required any clinical studies with the pollution concentrate, specifically, the hexafluorsilicate radical whose toxicokinetic properties are different than the lone, fluoride ion.
“Dean Burk, for many decades Chief Chemist at the National Cancer Institute, testified at congressional hearings in 1981 stating that over 40,000 cancer deaths in that year were attributable to fluoridation. He has said that no chemical causes as much cancer, and faster, than fluorides. Public health officials are quick to say that this data is not verified, which is entirely untrue, for international research as well as congressional hearings and court proceedings HAVE verified this information.”
(Hirzy JW. 2005 Jan. “Why the EPA’s Headquarter’s Professionals’ Union Opposes Fluoridation”).
Section 104 (I) (5) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) directs the Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, the EPA, the Public Health Service and the National Toxicology Program to initiate a program of research on fluoride safety. However, after almost 30 years of using fluorosilicic acid and sodium fluorosilicate to fluoridate the drinking water, not one study has been commissioned.
The fluoride ion only hypothetically exists as an entity in an ideal solution of purified water – and tap water is far from pure H2O. All clinical research with animal models is done using 99.97% pure sodium fluoride and double distilled or deionized water. Among the thousands of clinical studies about fluoride, not one has been done with the pollution concentrate or typical tap water containing fluorides.
Synergy Soup
The fluorosilicic acid is also contaminated with small traces of arsenic, cadmium, mercury, lead, sulfates, iron and phosphorous, not to mention radionuclides. Some contaminants have the potential to react with the hexafluorosilicate radical and may act as complex ionic compounds. The biological fates and toxicokinetic properties of these complex ions are unknown.
The reality of artificial water fluoridation is so complex that determining the safety of the practice may be impossible. Tap water is chemically treated with chlorine, soluble silicates, phosphate polymers and many other chemicals. In addition, the source water itself may contain a variety of contaminants.
The addition of a fluoridation agent can create synergized toxicants in a water supply that have unique toxico-kinetic properties found only in that particular water supply. Consequently, any maladies resulting from chronic ingestion of the product likely would be dismissed as a local or regional anomaly unrelated to water fluoridation.
Technically, artificially fluoridating drinking water is a violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). Under statutes of the SDWA, federal agencies are forbidden from endorsing, supporting, requiring or funding the practice of adding any chemicals to the water supply other than for purposes of water purification. However, the Public Health Service (PHS) applies semantics to circumvent Federal law in order to promote and fund the practice.
PHS states that they only recommend levels of fluorides in the drinking water, and it is the sole decision of a state or community to fluoridate drinking water.
Federal agencies are forbidden from directly funding or implementing water fluoridation but Federal Block Grants are given to States to use as they see fit. Through second and third parties (such as the American Dental Association, state health departments and state fluoridation coordinators), PHS encourages communities to apply for Federal Block Grant funds to implement fluoridation.
The legality of using Federal Block Grant funds to fund water fluoridation, a practice prohibited by Federal law, has never been addressed in the courts.
Vendors selling the pollution concentrate as a fluoridation agent use a broad disclaimer found on the Material Data Safety Sheet that states: “no responsibility can be assumed by vendor for any damage or injury resulting from abnormal use, from any failure to adhere to recommended practices, or from any hazards inherent to the product.”
The next time you turn on the tap and water gushes out into a glass, reflect on the following disclaimer from the EPA’s 1997 Fluoride: Regulatory Fact Sheet: “In the United States, there are no Federal safety standards which are applicable to additives, including those for use in fluoridating drinking water.” (Glasser G. “Fluoride and the phosphate connection”The Earth Island Journal).
Revision of the Drinking Water Standard:
In 1985 the EPA was engaged in revising its drinking water standard for fluoride. The EPA wanted to raise the drinking water standard, or Recommended Maximum Contaminant Level (RMCL), which EPA publishes in the Federal Register from
2 milligrams per liter (mg/l) of fluoride, which was previously set to protect against dental fluorosis, to 4 mg/l in drinking water.
“EPA professionals were never asked to conduct a thorough, independent analysis of the fluoride literature. Instead, their credentials were used to support the predetermined conclusion that 4 mg/l of fluoride in drinking water is safe.”
“EPA management based its standard on only one health effect: crippling skeletal fluorosis (CSF). They ignored data showing that healthy individuals were at risk of developing CSF if they happened to drink large quantities of water at the “safe” level of 4 mg/l. EPA’s own data showed that some people drink as much as 5.5 liters a day. These people would receive a daily dose of 22 mg, which exceeds the dose necessary to cause CSF” (In 1991 Robert Carlton was an EPA scientist and Vice President of Local 2050 of the National Federation of Federal Employees, representing 1200 EPA professionals; Hirzy JW 2005 Jan. Why the EPA’s Headquarters Professionals’ Union Opposes Fluoridation).
“Each liter of fluoridated water, at 1ppm concentration, contains a one milligram dose of fluoride, the so-called “recommended” daily amount. Water, however, is only one source of ingested fluoride. In 1991, the US Public Health Service estimated that the total daily intake for a 110 pound adult from all sources in an “optimally” fluoridated city, ranged as high as 6.6 milligrams. In 1997, the EPA estimated that Americans were ingesting nearly five times more fluoride than in 1971, from food and drink alone” (Smith G. Why Fluoride is an Environmental Issue, Earth Island Journal).
“Children are more at risk of over-exposure than adults. A 1991 study by the Journal of Clinical Pediatric Dentistry found that every sample of bottled fruit beverages tested contained fluoride. One sample of Gerber’s grape juice contained 6.8 ppm, 70% higher than the EPA’s Maximum Contaminant Level of 4ppm for fluoride in drinking water and 240% higher than the EPA’s 2ppm standard set to protect against dental fluorosis.” ” (Smith G. Why Fluoride is an Environmental Issue, Earth Island Journal).
The Effectiveness of Fluoride in Reducing Dental Cavities:
There has never been an adequately controlled, double-blind study of fluoride as a caries preventative. There have been many small scale, selective publications on this issue that proponents cite to justify fluoridation, but the largest and most comprehensive study, done by dentists trained by the National Institute of Dental Research on over 39,000 school children aged 5-17 years, shows, at best, a saving of less than one tooth surface out of 128 surfaces, in fluoridated communities. This study also shows that two-thirds of the children in fluoridated communities display dental fluorosis on at least one tooth.
The latest publication on the fifty-year fluoridation experiment in two New York cities, Newburgh and Kingston, gave similar findings. The only significant difference in dental health between the two communities as a whole is that fluoridated Newburgh, N.Y. shows about twice the incidence of dental fluorosis (the first, most visible sign of fluoride chronic toxicity) as seen in non-fluoridated Kingston. Other recent studies show that when fluoridation is stopped, rates of dental caries do not increase.
A publication by Featherstone revised the theory of fluoride’s effect on dental caries reduction. He posited that the effect was topical, not systemic. That is, fluoride works by affecting the tooth surface, especially in the high concentrations present in tooth pastes, rather than by incorporation of fluoride into the tooth structure through swallowing it, as had previously been thought.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention then issued a report in 2001 which affirmed the findings of Featherstone that the main benefit from using fluoride comes from topical application.
The Canadian Dental Association went even further, stating that fluoride’s effect on caries is topical, rather than systemic, and recommended that if a child brushes his/her teeth twice a day with fluoridated toothpaste that they should have no further exposure to fluoride even in a non fluoridated community.
John Colquhoun’s publication on this point of efficacy is especially important. Dr. Colquhoun was Principal Dental Officer for Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand, and a staunch supporter of fluoridation–until he was given the task of looking at the world-wide data on fluoridation’s effectiveness in preventing cavities. This paper provides details on how data were manipulated to support fluoridation in English speaking countries, especially the U.S. and New Zealand, and it explains why an ethical public health professional was compelled to do a 180 degree turn on fluoridation Hirzy JW. 2002 Dec. Part II: Why the EPA’s headquarter professionals’ union opposes flouridation. New Life Journal).
Professor Hardy Limeback, Head of Preventive Dentistry, University of Toronto and a former spokesperson for the Canadian Dental Associations program pushing fluoridation in Canada, also has reversed his position and now opposes the practice .
Fluoridation and Rising Blood Lead Levels in Children:
Fluoridating water increases lead exposure, especially to children, because the fluoride added to drinking water often has up to 400 mcg of lead per liter and the corrosive action of fluoride extracts lead from pipes and solder joints, increasing lead exposure of the young. Babies up to 3 months old absorb16 times as much lead per unit of body weight than adults. (Marcus WL. Facts on Fluoridation from EPA Whistleblowers, Earth Island Journal).Note: William Marcus is a Senior Science Advisor with the EPA’s Office of Science and Technology. In 1990, as a senior EPA toxicologist , Marcus questioned the safety of fluoride and was subsequently fired. He sued the EPA and won reinstatement.
Another study, sampling 280,000 children in Massachusetts, reported a doubling of the risk of lead levels in children’s blood, rising above the danger level of 10 micrograms per deciliter when the hazardous wastes from the phosphate fertilizer industry are used for fluoridation, rather than sodium fluoride or no fluoride at all.
The correlation with blood lead levels is especially serious because lead poisoning is associated with higher rates of learning disabilities, hyperactivity, substance abuse, and crime. (The Request for Endorsement of California Assembly Bill 1729 (AB1729),
Fluoride Product Quality Control Act Citizens for Safe Drinking Water CA Citizens for Health Freedom).
Fluoride Exposure and IQ Reduction:
In 1995, Mullenix and co-workers ( Mullenix and others.1995. Neurotoxicity of sodium fluoride in rats. Neurotoxicology. Teratol. 17:169-177). showed that rats given fluoride in drinking water at levels that give rise to plasma fluoride concentrations in the range seen in humans suffer neurotoxic effects that vary according to when the rats were given the fluoride – as adult animals, as young animals, or through the placenta before birth. Those exposed before birth were born hyperactive and remained so throughout their lives. Those exposed as young or adult animals displayed depressed activity.
Then in 1998, Guan and co-workers (Guan and others. 1998. Influence of chronic flurosis on membrane lipids in rat brain. Neurotoxicology Teratol. 20:537-542) gave doses similar to those used by the Mullenix research group to try to understand the mechanism(s) underlying the effects seen by the Mullenix group. Guan’s group found that several key chemicals in the brain – those that form the membrane of brain cells – were substantially depleted in rats given fluoride, as compared to those who did not get fluoride.
Another 1998 publication by Varner, Jensen and others (Varner and others. 1998. Chronic administration of aluminum-fluoride or sodium-fluoride to rats in drinking water: alterations in neuronal and cerebrovascular integrity. Brain Research 784:284-298). reported on the brain- and kidney damaging effects in rats that were given fluoride in drinking water at the same level deemed “optimal” by pro-fluoridation groups, namely 1 part per million (1 ppm). Even more pronounced damage was seen in animals that got the fluoride in conjunction with aluminum.
These results are especially disturbing because of the low dose level of fluoride that shows the toxic effect in rats -rats are more resistant to fluoride than humans. This latter statement is based on Mullenix’s finding that it takes substantially more fluoride in the drinking water of rats than of humans to reach the same fluoride level in plasma. It is the level in plasma that determines how much fluoride is “seen” by particular tissues in the body. So when rats get 1 ppm in drinking water, their brains and kidneys are exposed to much less fluoride than humans getting 1 ppm, yet they are experiencing toxic effects. Thus we are compelled to consider the likelihood that humans are experiencing damage to their brains and kidneys at the ‘optimal’ level of 1 ppm.
In support of this concern are results from two epidemiology studies from China (Zhao and others. 1996. Effect of high fluoride water supply on children’s intelligence. Fluoride 29:190-192; Li and others 1995. Effect of fluoride exposure on intelligence in children. Fluoride 28.), that show decreases in I.Q. in children who get more fluoride than the control groups of children in each study. These decreases are about 5 to 10 I.Q. points in children aged 8 to 13 years. Another troubling brain effect has recently surfaced: fluoride’s interference with the function of the brain’s pineal gland. The pineal gland produces melatonin which, among other roles, mediates the body’s internal clock, doing such things as governing the onset of puberty.
Jennifer Luke (Luke JA. 1994. Effect of fluoride on the physiology of the pineal gland. Caries Research 28:204) has shown that fluoride accumulates in the pineal gland and inhibits its production of melatonin. She showed in test animals that this inhibition causes an earlier onset of sexual maturity, an effect reported in humans as well in 1956, as part of the Kingston/Newburgh study, which is discussed above. In fluoridated Newburgh, young girls experienced earlier onset of menstruation (on average, by six months) than girls in non-fluoridated Kingston (Schlesinger and others. 1956. Newburgh-Kingston caries-fluorine study XIII. Pediatric findings after ten years. JADA 52:296-306.)
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