As Obama Warns of Hazards, the FDA Approves Mercury Dental Fillings

http://counterpunch.com/brown09012009.html

Mercury Mischief

-snip-

The 2008 Obama/Biden Plan for a Healthy America also stressed preventive approaches to disease, including the reduction of toxins to which the body is exposed; and chief among these toxins was mercury. The Plan stated as a fundamental goal:

“Reduce Risks of Mercury Pollution. More than five million women of childbearing age have high levels of toxic mercury in their blood, and approximately 630,000 newborns are born at risk every year. The EPA estimates that every year, more than one in six children could be at risk for developmental disorders because of mercury exposure in the mother’s womb.”

As a Senator, Obama was responsible for extensive legislation reducing environmental exposure to mercury, including a ban on the export of elemental mercury, and legislation to phase out the use of mercury in the manufacture of chlorine.

Mercury can get into the blood by various routes, and one that has been lately in the news is the mercury found in the thimerosol in vaccines. Another source that made the news in July is the mercury released from dental fillings by chewing. The World Health Organization has stated that between 3-17 micrograms of mercury are released into the body each day by chewing, compared to only 2-5 micrograms from fish and all other environmental sources combined. In 1990, the New England Journal of Medicine published an editorial calling mercury amalgam fillings “possibly the chief source of exposure of a large segment of the U.S. population”.

Surprise FDA Ruling

When mercury amalgam made the news on July 29, 2009, however, it was not to warn of its hazards. Rather, it was to report the FDA’s surprise ruling that mercury fillings are safe. The ruling came after years of foot dragging by the FDA and a wave of consumer lawsuits. A growing consumer movement had amassed so much evidence for the dangers posed by mercury dental fillings that when a court finally ordered the FDA to come out with a ruling, the plaintiffs announced, “We won!” But instead of the declaration they expected, the FDA imposed no restrictions on the use of mercury amalgam. Dentists were not even required to inform their patients that “silver” fillings are composed mostly of mercury. The FDA conceded that it did not know if amalgam was harmful to children under six, pregnant women, or nursing mothers, but it took no steps to protect them. It even pulled from its website an existing neurological risk advisory that said, “Dental amalgams contain mercury, which may have neurotoxic effects on the nervous systems of developing children and fetuses.”

Consumer advocates were stunned, as the FDA had earlier agreed to strengthen its warnings against mercury amalgam fillings. The evidence against mercury amalgam dental fillings was considered so compelling that Sweden, Norway, and other countries had already banned their use entirely. Degussa, Germany’s largest producer of amalgam and the world’s largest producer of metals for dentistry, completely shut down its amalgam production after a federal court ruled that dentists who used it faced legal liability. The FDA was expected to follow suit.

-snip-

Science or Politics? The Liability Question
-snip-
----------------------------------


insanity! this needs to be repealed. shouldn't Obama speak up and get rid of this. will mercury be in his own daughter's mouth, body and brain?

to the food and drug industry administration.

Fucking Demonic Assholes

They don't really look at food all that closely.

None of my kids' fillings are amalgam.

I can't see why the dental industry would simply drop them as a safety precaution.

=========

EDIT: Gad! I totally screwed up the last sentence. It should read, "I can't see why the dental industry would NOT simply drop them as a safety precaution." geez.

And, there's no evidence they cause any health problems whatsoever. Just fearmongering from the usual anti-vaccination, anti-"pharma" brigade.

do you have mercury fillings?

Consumer advocates were stunned, as the FDA had earlier agreed to strengthen its warnings against mercury amalgam fillings. The evidence against mercury amalgam dental fillings was considered so compelling that Sweden, Norway, and other countries had already banned their use entirely. Degussa, Germany’s largest producer of amalgam and the world’s largest producer of metals for dentistry, completely shut down its amalgam production after a federal court ruled that dentists who used it faced legal liability. The FDA was expected to follow suit.


Sweden and Norway have not done away with vaccinations, as far as I know.

I am deeply suspicious of the FDA. It's clear that they've missed the boat on more than one occasion. There is no excuse for their failures to protect the public in recent years.

. . . stopped using amalgam one day while connecting two dots:

Mercury - handled as a hazardous waste for disposal
Fillings - putting that in people's mouths.

Graduated at the top of his class. Teaches at UCLA school of dentistry.

He doesn't understand the chemistry of amalgam though.

A gazillion people can say the same.

However, consider this: A good friend of mine runs an environmental analytical lab. When he sends out technicians to sample indoor air for mercury, they must use self contained breath equipment because the mercury in their fillings is detectable in the air and gives an unacceptably high background reading.

However, your friend is interested in precise analytical data. The discussion here concerns levels of mercury that are harmful to health. Our bodies do have the ability to process and secrete mercury, just not in large amounts. All evidence to date suggests that the amount of mercury released by amalgam fillings is not harmful, and when you consider it's been in use as a restorative material for almost two hundred years that's a pretty good sample size.

If the exposure rates were anything like the anti-amalgam people claimed,
your fillings would literally disappear in a decade or so. Some of mine have
been in there, ahem, a wee bit more than a decade or even two, and they're
not showing any signs of evaporating away yet!

Tesha

companies.

mercury in fillings and no dental in medicare only in private insurance.

money first, health second

I'm not sure that makes sense at any level. Insurance companies want you to be pay premiums and stay well. Sick clients are expensive.

I neglected to link pharma Barons with the Ins. Barons

the chronic need a constant flow of medicine, etc. like the diabetic.

(like Drs. like the obese - its their bread and butter. always coming back to the office to be weighed and treated.)

I am lucky to not be one of them...
But yes, I am giving tons of money to Sanofi-Aventis (makes the insulin I use) and whoever makes the test strips and needles that I use.

What the fucking hell is wrong with this country?

Exposure to a toxic chemical species does not mean anything.

What matters is the dose.

There is nothing inconsistent with reducing environmental mercury, while approving mercury amalgam filings. The former presents a risk, the latter presents none.

two years ago. The white composite fillings have no mercury in them.

and putting in composite fillings. Since the latter don't last as long, there is good repeat business too.

The same folks who accuse the dental industry of profiting by poisoning us with amalgam don't seem to turn that same critical eye to the dentists who are giving themselves a sizable and consistent income by "suggesting" the replacement of amalgam with an inferior substance.

I'm not dead yet, and have never had any symptoms of mercury poisoning.