Good afternoon.  I am John Mueller, I’m white with brown hair, pronouns he, him and his. I am a now retired licensed civil and control systems engineer, and with an engineering degree in geophysics from the Coorado School of Mines. My professional career included 25 years in water resources engineering in Silicon Valley and then in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  My hands-on experience includes treatment processes at drinking water and wastewater treatment plant operations and maintenance.

Let me first say that as an observer in this meeting, I truly admire and am impressed and encouraged by the programs and activities being undertaken in response to the current Biden administration’s initiatives to promote environmental justice from Executive Orders 14008 and particularly 13990 for the need to listen to the science.  Indeed, the CORE program is awesome in its comprehensiveness and approaches to address the environmental and public health inequities.

I have joined this meeting because of my concern for the vulnerabilities of our public drinking water supplies and disproportionate harm from environmental contaminants to Blacks, other minorities, and other disadvantaged communities.  Some of the industrial chemicals being added at our nation’s public drinking water utilities are being imported from China.  I know that protection of those waters from adverse effects from known contaminants relies on NSF Health and Safety Standards and attendant NSF Certification of the chemical supplier.  A recent search of the NSF website reveals NO certified suppliers of water fluoridation chemicals sourced from China.

For the past nearly 14 years I have been a student of the history and science of artificial water fluoridation.  This endeavor began when as Senior Engineer for the City of Tulsa’s Water Supply Section, seeing that the EPA endorses the treatment of public water supplies with pollutant chemicals from phosphate fertilizer production for water fluoridation.  If a proposal of that policy was introduced today, it would be laughed at for being totally absurd and unethical as a means of mass medication without informed consent, unknown individual health conditions and no follow-up for efficacy. Even today, a threshold level of exposure has still not been established below which fluoride’s neurodevelopmental toxicity has no adverse effects.    

It is well established by Blacks and minority groups that fluoridation is clearly an environmental injustice.

All of this leads to the need for a very dramatic paradigm shift away from fluoridation to more targeted, localized, and individualized oral health programs where needed most to level the playing field of public health.

Thank you very much for this opportunity to provide comment.

Public Comment
From John Mueller of Guthrie, OK
To the Board of Scientific Counselors (BSC) January 23, 2023

John Mueller, Oklahoma, former Senior Engineer for the City of Tulsa’s Water Supply Section