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Arsenic and Old Lace
Joseph's Kesselring's stage play entitled "Arsenic and Old Lace" ran for three years (1941-44) before the film which starred Cary Grant was released in 1944. The play portrayed two sweet little old ladies who are serial killers and who usually murder their victims with arsenic.
We don't wish to be accused of proposing a conspiracy theory and we've only used the title of the play/film to provocatively introduce the topic. However, even though no-one is murdered by the Government (death being a fatal acute health condition), how could it get any worse than a slow decline into ill health caused by drinking deliberately added arsenic to our drinking water?
British Standard 12175:2013 lists the "chemical parameters" present in the fluoridating acid: antimony, arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury and nickel. I suppose we should be grateful that the Government in its munificence has sanctioned the addition of beneficial selenium. However, the presence of the health-damaging heavy metals far outweighs the presence of selenium. (Note that nickel is supposed to be a micro essential mineral. Mmm - the jury is out on that one.)
The table below is an adapted table from the British Standard with the quaint title: Chemicals used for treatment of water intended for human consumption - Hexafluorosilicic acid). The final three columns in the table have been calculated using the British Standard data in Column 2. Of particular concern are the maximum concentrations of Arsenic and Lead added to drinking water when Hexafluorosilicic acid is used for the purposes of adding Fluoride.
The ALARP Principle (As Low As Reasonably Practicable) should be used in respect of Arsenic because it's a carcinogen. That principle is clearly being violated when Hexafluorosilicic acid is used. It may be a quarter of the maximum allowable per litre, but people drink water containing arsenic every day so the bio-accumulation of this cancer-causing substance is a cause for concern.
This information needs to be seen by those promoting WF. For too long they have either remained in ignorance OR have denied the truth. A letter was sent to Rishi Sunak by Recorded Delivery on 28th October 2022. The relevant information from the British Standard was enclosed. We hope for a reply but not holding our breath.
Water companies are paid by their customers to treat raw water so that it is potable. By deliberately adding heavy metals and carcinogens to treated water, they are reversing its state from potable to unfit for purpose. They get away with this because none of the chemical parameters exceed the maximum allowable. There is no account taken of bioaccumulation and synergy between the chemical parameters. The maximum allowable standard for each chemical parameter surely only applies to water treatment of raw water to reduce them down to below their maximum allowable? There is no intention in legislation for them to be deliberately added to drinking water.
Note that the data in Column 4 only applies if fluoridated water is drinking water. Since fluoridated water is not drinking water according to the Drinking Water Directive (retained post Brexit), there is no PCV (Max. allowable per litre of water) and any amount is too much.
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Hydrofluoric Acid
The other chemical of concern which is added to treated drinking water when hexafluorosilicic acid is used is Hydrofluoric Acid (HF). This is a particularly nasty acid. According to BSEN 12175:2013, p. 7, this is present as 1.5% max. of the fluoridating acid. On p. 19 of the British Standard, water companies are advised to add 6.3mg of the fluoridating acid to each litre of treated water in order to dose the water with 1mg Fluoride/litre. That's because the fluoridating acid is a 20% fluoride solution. The practice adds a maximum of 0.0945mg HF per litre. This is not an insignificant amount.
Nobody should be made to drink Hydrofluoric Acid. If the acid at higher concentrations touches the skin, it is rapidly absorbed. HF burns internal tissues, can cause heart attacks and will almost inevitably burn the skin where the acid was absorbed but only after deeper tissues have been destroyed. In many cases, a limb has to be amputated or the patient dies. However, at 0.0945mg/litre maximum, swallowed HF can cause stomach aches/colic. Again, we have to ask why the presence of HF in drinking water has been overlooked or denied by those promoting WF?
Newspaper article from the New York Times discusses the presence of organic arsenic in well water in the USA and in Bangladesh.
A 2014 on-line article on arsenic by Dr Joseph Mercola. "Surprising Source of Arsenic in Your Drinking Water—Will EPA Take Steps to Protect Your Health?"
It is important to establish an understanding of the units used to quantitatively describe arsenic and lead.
The units used for arsenic and lead are different to the units used for fluoride. If you thought that 1 mg was impossibly tiny (one in a million or one part per million, the million referring to a litre), the maximum contaminant level - MCL - for arsenic and lead are one hundred times less, i.e. 10 micrograms.
A microgram is often represented by a greek letter - µ [mu]
1µg is 0.001 mg (1000 times less than 1mg).
The maximum allowable for arsenic and lead is 10µg/litre.
10µg is 0.01mg (100 times less than 1mg).
Yes - these quantities are used in setting standards. Whether they can be seen under a microscope is another matter.
Even 10µg/litre us considered by many scientists are being too much and there are calls for this to be lowered to 0µg/litre. This may not be physically possible using current water treatment technology so as long as water companies aim to reduce arsenic and lead in raw water to below 10µg, that is normally the best that we can hope for. The "aim to reduce" is the same as As Low As Reasonably Practicable" - the ALARP principle.
"Inorganic Arsenic
The maximum contaminant level (MCL) is the highest level of a contaminant that is allowed in drinking water based on cost benefit analysis and is enforceable. The maximum contaminant level goal (MCLG) is a non-enforceable level at which no known or anticipated adverse effects on the health of persons occur and which allows adequate margin of safety.
The US EPA published an MCL of 0.01 mg/L (10µg/litre and an MCLG of zero for arsenic on January 22, 2001. The MCL for arsenic was set at the level at which lung and bladder cancer reduction benefits were maximized at a cost that was justified by the benefits."
(Ramasamy and Lee. (2015). Handbook of Arsenic Toxicology, Ch. 4.8.1.1.1)
If the MCLG is 0 µg, concentrations of 0.1µg and higher are unsafe. Currently, English water companies allow Arsenic in treated water at above the level of 0.1µg and if the water is fluoridated, the concentration will be higher.
So it is galling that the UK's DHSC/OHID think that it's alright to add arsenic and lead to treated water. There's absolutely no excuse for doing so, particularly since there is no safe concentration of arsenic.
The following file is a potpourri of other facts about arsenic.
