Monthly Safe Water meeting

We met on Thursday for our monthly meeting - Bernard was our only representative from Bristol but was able to update us on his campaigning while Philip noted that he had raised again Emergency Procedures in dealing with a spillage of Hexafluorosilic acid - see our blog for 15th January 2008.

Various other issues discussed included progress on a very detailed letter answering a letter from the health service, recent press coverage (see previous blogs) our AGM later in the year, more stalls, our latest leaflet and more....

Photos: Above meeting and below a headline from Telegraph

We also discussed the article above - see it in full here -

basically a 100-page statement, commissioned by the drinking water watchdog, the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI), reveals that pharmaceuticals are finding their way into the water supply via sewage treatment works effluent despite extensive purification treatments used by water companies. Trace levels of bleomycin, a cancer chemotherapy drug, and diazepam, a sedative, have been found during tests on drinking water, the report reveals. While the levels are considered too low to pose a direct risk to health, doctors have expressed concern about exposing pregnant women to drugs that could harm an unborn child.

Next Safe Water Campaign meeting 1.30 on Thursday 28th February.

Letter in Stroud News Journal

Published in "Bristol Evening Post"

Sir,

I don't know why Gordon Brown is so keen to reform the NHS with free health checks. Is he really serious about saving lives?He is presumably quite happy with the call for 18 million of us to accept silicofluoride in our tap water on the pretence of helping children to avoid tooth decay.All fluorine compunds are toxic and silicofluoride is no exception. Indeed, it is not only toxic, but corrosive to glass, concrete, steel and our copper plumbing as well. Traces of radioactive Radium and Polonium 210 are also present. The public risk to health from just one road accident involving a fluoride transport tanker is potentially catastrophic.Said to be safe in our water at a dilution of 1 part fluoride per million of water; risky at 2ppm and harmful at 3ppm, this gives what is known as a therapeutic index (a safety margin) of no more than 3. All other drugs designed for human use are required to have an index of at least 100.So what does that tell us about prime ministerial concern for our health?



Bernard J Seward Bristol

Hexafluorosilic acid on our roads

Cllr Philip Booth again raises the risks of transporting Hexafluorosilic acid on our roads with County Emergency Officers - see his letter here on his blog today. Below is the original letter sent by the Safe Water Campaign to Emergency Officers and services in the region:

Dear XXXXX I am writing this open letter on behalf of the Safe Water Campaign for Avon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, which has gathered many thousands of signatures locally from those who are opposed to artificial fluoridation of our public water supplies. I, and others, in the group have undertaken an in-depth study of the literature and research papers into the properties and effects of fluoride compounds. We are very concerned about the extraordinary toxicity, reactivity and corrosiveness of hexafluorosilic acid (H2SiF6) which is the predominant agent used to artificially fluoridate 10% of Britain's public water supplies. Government's plans to extend fluoridation to further large areas of Britain will mean many more hundreds of tons of hexafluorosilic acid on our roads. In the light of this we hope you will be able to answer our concerns that are directly relevant to our Emergency services: 1. Are you aware of the following incidents? - On Gloucestershire's doorstep at Avonmouth in 2001? A portable tank of hexafluorosilic acid was damaged in transit from Bilbao in Spain. On discovery, the port authority declared a 'Port Emergency' and a 'Major Incident' which resulted in much of the port being shut down for about 30 hours. Details obtained by the National Pure Water Association (NPWA) show this incident was a hairs breadth away from being a major life-taking catastrophe. - Florida, USA, 6th September 1994 there was an accident involving a truck carrying 4,500 gallons of hexafluorosilic acid. It's entire contents were spilled out onto the public highway. 87 people including police and other Emergency workers had to be hospitalised for treatment for up to 6 weeks. 300 tons of fluoride contaminated dirt needed to be removed. The accident occurred during rain and the operation only just managed to prevent contamination of groundwater and aquifers. 2. What contact do you have with the water authorities concerning the transportation of hexafluorosilic acid? Do the water authorities fluoridating at present (e.g. Severn Trent in the Birmingham area) have any legal obligation to inform Emergency Authorities, such as yourselves, when and where trucks carrying hexafluorosilic acid are travelling on our roads? Or have the water authorities contacted you on a voluntary basis about the transportation of this class 8 chemical on our roads? Or do you have no contact? 3. Are you aware of the following well-documented facts that no doubt are of considerable concern for the Emergency Services? - Extreme risks re contact with tarmac and vegetation. Hexafluorosilic acid is a by-product of the artificial fertiliser industry. The fertiliser is produced by the chemical breakdown of phosphate-bearing rock. In the process hydrogen fluoride is given off in considerable quantities. This is generally acknowledged by scientists to be the most highly reactive and corrosive compound known to us. This gas is then passed through 'scrubber towers' (the trade name) where it is chemically combined with silica to form hexafluorosilic acid. Concentrated hexafluorosilic acid spilled onto a road reacts with the tarmac to reform the very dangerous hydrogen fluoride gas. After the accident in Florida 600 feet of motorway had to be resurfaced. There is evidence that a concentration of one billionth of hydrogen fluoride can and has devastated large areas of vegetation. - Highly poisonous. Fluoride is such a cumulative poison with 50 percent of all that is ingested being retained in the body for life. In concentrated form in a single dose can lead to death within 24 hours. The acknowledged world expert at the time, Roholm established that the cause of the first major recorded environmental disaster was hydrogen fluoride. This occurred in the Meuse Valley near Brussels in 1930 where 60 people died and 6,000 people were made severely ill. - Causes cancer. Hexafluorosilic acid used for artificial water fluoridation is a waste product of the fertiliser industry, obtained by breaking down phosphate rock which has such a high uranium content that until recently the nuclear industry in the US used it as a source for nuclear fuel! The NPWA has written confirmation from the U.S. Public Health Service (1998) regarding the presence of 'radionuclides' in hexafluorosilic acid used in the water fluoridation plants. Detailed descriptions show, quite alarmingly, that the break-down of products from the phosphate rock, when artificial fertiliser is manufactured, include a whole 'bevy' of radioactive or otherwise highly poisonous substances. Predominant among them is Radon 210. This substance has a deep and well-hidden 'biography'. After this radioactive gas is produced, it dissolves readily in the hexafluorosilic acid when it passes with all the other break down products into the scrubber towers. The Radon has a half-life of 3.86 days. This means it turns quite rapidly and seemingly innocuously into its decay product Lead 210. Lead 210. as far as is known, has no damaging radiation, but carries with it the property of combining as readily and eagerly with the human bones as calcium itself does. Scientists tell us that after 20 years lead 210 transmutes into polonium 210 which then gives off 5,000 more alpha radiation than radium. Scientists estimate that a mere 6.8 trillionth of a gram (0.0000000000068gm) can cause cancer. How unlikely is it that those people including police and other Emergency workers who were hospitalised for the full six weeks after the accident in Florida are not right now harbouring lead 210 which in 9 years time would be due to transmute into deadly polonium? (All this in the cause of supposedly helping young children have somewhat less tooth decay.) 4. What plans do you have to deal with an event involving a major spillage of hexafluorosilic acid on Gloucestershire's roads? Are all the Emergency services aware of the very considerable dangers of such an incident? Do you for example, have specific plans for dealing with potentially thousands of tons of radioactive fluoride-contaminated earth? Surely poor disposal could lead to further very considerable health risks and dangers? We would appreciate a speedy and thorough reply to these questions. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you need further information or would like to discuss the matter further. Yours faithfully, James Christian, Safe Water Campaign for Avon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire

Safe Water Campaigner challenges Daily Telegraph Article

Sir,
The Drinking Water Inspectorate may be a watchdog, but it's a poor kind of dog which retreats to its kennel when challenged. In the course of my 40 plus years of campaigning, alone and with others, against the deliberate contamination of our water supplies with silicofluoride, (a corrosive, poisonous waste product) simply on the grounds of reducing children's tooth decay, I wrote to the DWI to express my concern and query its position on fluoridation. In its reply to my letter, in which I had drawn attention to the alleged 'safe' concentration of 1.0 part fluoride per million of water becoming massively increased by the simple act of heating the water, such as to make tea and boil vegetables, the DWI stated that it supplied a product conforming strictly to regulations. What the consumer did with it was beyond its control. The implications of that priceless piece of evasive officialdom should be considered carefully by domestic consumers, not forgetting food and drink manufacturers and industries raising steam. Would 'criminal negligence' be a suitable charge to bring against the DWI, or would we find it 'kennelled' beyond reach of of the judicial system?
Bernard J Seward Bristol

Second thoughts about Fluoride

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS108377+02-Jan-
NEW YORK, Jan. 2
"Some recent studies suggest that over-consumption of fluoride can raise the risks of disorders affecting teeth, bones, the brain and the thyroid gland," reports Scientific American editors (January 2008). "Scientific attitudes toward fluoridation may be starting to shift," writes author Dan Fagin.
"Fluoride, the most consumed drug in the USA, is deliberately added to 2/3 of public water supplies theoretically to reduce tooth decay, but with no scientifically-valid evidence proving safety or effectiveness," says lawyer Paul Beeber, President, New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation. Fagin, award-wining environmental reporter and Director of New York University's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program, writes, "There is no universally accepted optimal level for daily intake of fluoride." Some researchers even wonder whether the 1 mg/L added into drinking water is too much, reports Fagin.
After 3 years of scrutinizing hundreds of studies, a National Research Council (NRC) committee "concluded that fluoride can subtly alter endocrine function, especially in the thyroid -- the gland that produces hormones regulating growth and metabolism," reports Fagin.
Fagin quotes John Doull, professor emeritus of pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Kansas Medical Center, who chaired the NRC committee thusly, "The thyroid changes do worry me."
Fluoride in foods, beverages, medicines and dental products can result in fluoride over-consumption, visible in young children as dental fluorosis -- white spotted, yellow, brown and/or pitted teeth. We can't normally see fluoride's effects to the rest of the body.
Reports Fagin, "a series of epidemiological studies in China have associated high fluoride exposures with lower IQ." "(E)pidemiological studies and tests on lab animals suggest that high fluoride exposure increases the risk of bone fracture, especially in vulnerable populations such as the elderly and diabetics," writes Fagin.
Fagin interviewed Steven Levy, director of the Iowa Fluoride Study which tracked about 700 Iowa children for sixteen years. Nine-year-old "Iowa children who lived in communities where the water was fluoridated were 50 percent more likely to have mild fluorosis... than [nine-year-old] children living in nonfluoridated areas of the state," writes Fagin.
Levy will study fluoride's effects on their bones.
Over 1200 professionals urge Congress to cease water fluoridation and conduct Congressional hearings because scientific evidence indicates fluoridation is ineffective and has serious health risks.