The Mercury Mischief: As Obama Warns of Hazards, The FDA Approves Mercury Dental Fillings

The government seems to be speaking out of both sides of its mouth, as the President preaches one thing and the FDA does another. If we are going to have "smarter medicine that really works," we need to get politics, lobbies and cronyism out of science.

President Obama has proposed covering the costs of his new medical plan with "smarter" medicine, meaning the adoption of procedures that eliminate inefficiencies and stress prevention. At a town hall meeting in New Hampshire on August 11, 2009, he gave the example of a diabetic needing to have a foot amputated, at a cost of $30,000 to $50,000. It would have been smarter to counsel the patient on diet and weight loss and monitor his medications before amputation was required. The insurance company would have saved money and the patient would have saved a foot.

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 [to mercury] 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.

Why its unexpected about-face? Charles Brown, of the National Counsel for consumers for Dental Choice, suggests it had to do with a change in personnel. In May 2009, Dr. Margaret Hamburg succeeded to the post of FDA Commissioner. The Wall Street Journal noted that for five years before that, she served on the board of Henry Schein Inc., a $4 billion firm that distributes medical and dental supplies, including vaccines. Brown wrote skeptically:

Washington is famous for the revolving door -- those in the party out of power take highly paid corporate positions, then return to government to bail out their benefactors. The new FDA Commissioner, Margaret Hamburg, worked in the Clinton Administration, then went out and became a director at the dental products colossus Henry Schein, earning a quarter million dollars a year for the handful of hours it takes to be a director. Corporations do this because they know the other party will return to power, at which time the corporations will call in their chits.

Science or Politics? The Liability Question

Beyond that potential conflict of interest, there was likely to have been heavy pressure from the American Dental Association, the professional union of dentists. If mercury amalgam were officially declared to be toxic, an estimated two billion mercury amalgam fillings might have to be replaced at practitioners' or insurers' expense, not to mention the flood of lawsuits for medical injuries that would follow.

Dentists could hardly defend by pleading ignorance of mercury's harmful effects, since its health risks have long been known. Lewis Carroll alluded to the toxic effects of mercury in his nineteenth century character the Mad Hatter. Felt hat workers exposed to mercuric nitrate were observed to exhibit emotional symptoms including sudden anger, depression, loss of memory, timidity, insomnia, irritability, hallucinations, delusions and mania, a condition referred to as "mad hatter syndrome." The manufacturer of the product Dispersalloy, consisting of capsules of metal powder mixed with liquid mercury and placed in the patient's mouth, has a warning on its website stating:

Inhalation of mercury vapor over a long period may cause mercurialism which is characterized by fine tremors and erethism... Erethism may be manifested by abnormal shyness, blushing, self-consciousness, depression or despondency, resentment of criticism, irritability or excitability, headache, fatigue and insomnia. In severe cases, hallucinations, loss of memory and mental deterioration may occur.

Among other disturbing studies prompting consumer concerns was one reported in August 1990 by Drs. Lorscheider and Vimy of the University of Calgary in Alberta, in which twelve radioactive mercury amalgam fillings (a typical number for a human adult) were placed in the mouths of sheep. A control group received fillings made of an inert material. Within thirty days, the sheep that got the amalgam had lost half their kidney function. The study showed that mercury in amalgam fillings is not locked in the teeth but spreads through the body to the organs. Similar data have been reported for monkeys. The isotope labeled mercury showed poisoning of the internal organs and the brain of both sheep and monkeys.

Studies in humans include one conducted at the University of Kentucky, showing significant elevations of mercury in the brains of 180 Kentucky residents who were autopsied after dying of Alzheimer's disease. When the concentrations of trace elements were analyzed, the most important imbalance found was an elevation of mercury. In studies of the cadavers of accident victims, those with a mere five amalgams had three times the amount of mercury in their brain tissues as cadavers without amalgams.

Other studies have linked mercury fillings to multiple sclerosis. In one reported by Colorado State University researcher Robert Siblerud, MS patients having amalgams were compared to MS patients whose amalgams had been removed. The former group was found to have significantly lower levels of red blood cells, hemoglobin, hematocrit, T-Lymphocytes and T-8 suppressor cells (indicating lowered immunity). They also had 33 percent more flare-ups of their symptoms during the previous year. In another study, mercury levels in the cerebrospinal fluid of MS patients were shown to be eight times higher than in controls. Siblerud observed that MS was first described by a French doctor in the mid-1830s, less than a decade after silver/mercury fillings were first promoted in Paris.

All of which suggests that the FDA's July 31 ruling was based more on politics than science. The effects of mercury amalgam fillings on the patients themselves apparently carried less weight than its effects on the balance sheets of medical professionals and insurance companies.

If we are going to have "smarter medicine" that really keeps people well, we need to get politics out of medicine. We need a government agency that explores and funds solid research into what keeps people healthy and what makes them sick, an agency that makes its determinations independently of lobbies, drug detail men, funding from industries standing to benefit from the results, or revolving doors into and out of those industries.

Written in consultation with Richard Hansen, D.M.D., co-author of The Key to Ultimate Health: Non-Toxic Dentistry.

Follow Ellen Brown on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ellenhbrown

Comments

[dehalvemaen]

What is truly needed is a true cost benefit analysis of related healthcare costs related to the deleterious effects of "silver fillings", ultimately exposing the public to mercury toxicity. How many people, including healthcare professionals are actually checking mercury levels related to dental fillings? Medical and dental students are taught that dental amalgam is safe. What guidance does the FDA offer as to how many fillings or mercury load from fillings is safe? effectively with the FDA's classification a person could have mercury fillings placed in every tooth and the public is supposed to believe that mercury exposure from each tooth chomping on a fish fry dinner is irrelevant? Something fishy about that...

[bkay]

Thank you, ellen. I have posed the question to many dentists as I still have some silver fillings and was told there is no evidence of any poor effects. With so many other alternatives as fillers, why do dentists continue to use mercury? It is very hard to realize that this waste product has been resold to an unsuspecting public just to "recycle" it and make some bucks. We must all wake up, and protest, and save our children. Thank goodness for the use of the internet, and dedicated researchers like ellen brown who have the compassion and the skills to tell us what we suspect, but never have known for sure about suppressed, corporate propaganda, whether it is in health or banking.! bkay

[dogster]

So why isn't there a massive class action lawsuit against dentists and amalgam manufacturers?

The legal side of this story needs better explaining.

[Ellen Brown - Huffpost Blogger]

Per attorney Jim Love, it's because Rule 23, which sets forth the rules of class action lawsuits, requires that there be “commonality” of fact or legal issues and “typicality” of claims among the representatives of the class and the class members. Courts will not certify classes of plaintiffs asserting personal injury claims because the injuries suffered are unique to each individual plaintiff. Thus, there is no commonality or typicality.

[Next-To-Nothing]

Lol I'm Jay from the Mad Hatter Chimney sweep in Seattle just thought I'd say I never knew why The Mad Hatter wen't Crazy.
that's so cool.

[berniew1]

For those with several amalgam fillings, dental amalgam is documented by thousands of medical lab tests and confirmed by Government agencies to be the largest source of mercury in most people.
www.flcv.com/damspr1.html
Dental amalgam is also documented by Gov't agencies to be the largest source of mercury in sewers, all of which have high levels due to amalgam. Thus amalgam is also a significant source of mercury in water bodies, fish, etc. www.flcv.com/damspr2f.html
The mechanisms by which mercury from amalgam commonly causes over 30 chronic health conditions has been documented in the medical literature by thousands of peer-reviewed studies, which were also sent to the FDA in the amalgam docket: www.flcv.com/indexa.html & www.flcv.com/fdarev.html
Many thousands or hundreds of thousands have been documented to have recovered or significantly improved from all of these conditions after amalgam replacement, sometimes with additional detox:
www.flcv.com/hgrecovp.html & www.flcv.com/hgremove.html

[sprtofrose]

There are always many sides to an issue and a person will view the issue according to one's past life experiences. As a victim of mercury poisoning that was life threatening, heavy metals and their effect on the human body is not a course that physicians have to study when they are in medical school. This should be a mandatory course now because of the environmental impacts that are now placed on the human body that were not there at the turn of the 20th century.

[VWTurbo]

Unbelievable, and yet I always knew the government was run by industry not the voters.......thank you for the great information.

[Gunga Din]

Ellen I have found your stuff on the fed reserve, and agree with you wholeheartedly , so it was equally rewarding to read your comments on amalgam fillings.

[Gunga Din]

When that 60 minute broadcast came out, i called the dental researchers for info on the safety of amalgams, they assured me it was safe. I then asked for the research- turns out there was none ! just some stuff on amalgam being durable. The other claim is that it forms a "eutectic alloy" which is like stainless steel-that's not true either. You can actually see mercury coming off amalgam fillings when it is exposed to short wave black light. It looks like cigarette smoke when you rub(just rub) an amalgam filling. If you warm amalgam with a match ( by the way -this is outside the mouth ) It looks like black plastic burning ! This at temperatures that are not too hot to hold , say like a cup off hot coffee.
Where does it make sense to put the second most toxic stuff on the earth- in peoples mouths?
We get warnings about fish when they get 2 parts per million mercury in them. Amalgam fillings are 500,000 parts per million.

[Ellen Brown - Huffpost Blogger]

Great information! I may have to put all this in a sequel. Ellen

[PARISii]

Former CEO mgmt consutling firm World Trade Center, I collapsed in paralysis, returned to MN to die, hired Mayo: diagnosis "MS" + wheelchair + lifelong Rx of immuno-suppressing CoPaxone.

Fortunately, read Sullivan's Townsend article 3 pg: "Amalgam: Link to Disease?" Slurring speech, unable to walk, I posed 1 question to world renown neurologist: Read research on amalgam? The answer saved my life: Quipped he "didnt have to...it was a fad like bee venom." Fad? Persians knew it deadly 3,000 years ago. I fired Mayo.

1 week later at Biodentist, upon removal of 1st quadrant--my paralyzed hand OPENED!

Month later, testified to MN Senate on "gag order", arguing for informed consent: Mayo sent 2 MDs to testify against me, arguing it would "frighten the public." I lost.

As lead petitioner to force MN Dental Board to disclose 50-74% Hg in amalgam (3% silver) I argued consumers must get informed consent. I lost 8 to 1.

Now launching global chelation project offshore, with world's leading Physicians, biological dentists, toxicologists. Did I mention 50,000 peer articles on my website? For MDs who say Hg is "fad." The largest iatrogenic poisoning in history by 2 con-artists peddling "ROYAL" fillings, Crawcour Bros, thrown out of US after launching a toxic technology, now "standard of care." Rothschild's 1932 dream to "flood US with Hg" fulfilled.
Hg amalgam purveyors must be charged with criminal acts. My medical records are public: brain lesions disappeared, giving speeches globally.

[patsybartee]

When I was 18 I received 17 fillings in one visit to the dentist. I am now 60 and am still trying to get my health back. I have had all but one filling removed. I had never connected how I felt with my teeth until I looked back through my diaries and noticed every time I got my teeth cleaned I was sick for a week, even a month. This has to stop!

[lmsteinberg]

Thank you so much for your accurate reporting. It is terribly frustrating to note that in spite of massive evidence to the contrary, the FDA, an agency that is supposed to protect the consumer, continues to stonewall and misinform on this issue.

[Helen Alderson]

I could see the lobbyists involved in the FDA's decision. I imagine the insurance companies would love to provide sub-par coverage for treatment. A big concern I have is that the majority of dentist (98-99%) have not been trained in the safe removal of mercury from the teeth, nor are they trained in the proper, most scientifically advanced method of replacement. If amalgam is ever to be declared unsafe, then it has to be a requirement for dentists to learn to do these things. Otherwise, I would for foresee that there would be an increase in the placement of crowns (bad for teeth) and root canals (bad for the body). Thus, we would change one toxin for a much more hidden one of root canals.

[tamdmd]

This will help the IAOMT and other mercury-free dentists continue our cause! This is a very informative and extremely well written article from a woman who has experienced the life altering effects of mercury first hand. People are taking responsibility for their own health and they NEED this informatio­n....bravo­!

[mercuryfreedentist]

Thank you ElIen Brown for this timely and accurate article. I chose to be a mercury free dentist 24 years ago. Since then I have seen hundreds of patients with a wide variety of symptoms and diseases totally recover or greatly improve. I have had patients with headaches, ringing or noises in the ears, panic attacks, angina pain (22 years), chronic fatigue, Crones Disease, crippling leg pains, sinusitus, allergies, thyroid problems, (to name just a few), recover and become productive citizens again.
It is time for concerned citizens and enlightened dentists to join hands in demanding accountability of our government agencies and professional associations. The FDA should be requiring about 99% of practicing dentists to 1) learn the safety precautions in removing amalgams, and 2) install amalgam separators to prevent a huge impact on the environment, and 3) systematically, over a 5 year time frame, remove all mercury fillings from their patients.

[dehalvemaen]

Found in the Dental Amalgam Restorations and Children’s Neuropsychological Function: The New England Children’s Amalgam Trial
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1849920

"Children were eligible if they were 6–10 years of age, fluent in English, had no known prior or existing amalgam restorations, had two or more posterior teeth with dental caries, and did not have a physician-diagnosed psychological, behavioral, neurological, immunosuppressive, or renal disorder"

Consider the comment of Dr. Ng Chief of Dentistry Children's Hospital in Boston, Mass. at the Sept. 2006 hearing on dental amalgam

see transcript of the FDA Hearing on Dental Amlagam Sept. 6th & 7th, 2006
http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfAdvisory/details.cfm?mtg=668
DR. NG: Man Wai. "I know something about the New England amalgam trial, although I was not involved in it. But I think it has to do with the study design, and it was purposefully designed to enroll children who are older and without medical problems"

What about children younger than those in the study group, or children who do not meet health qualifications for the study group? Might the exposure for those with excluded attributes be more vulnerable to the exposure of mercury fillings? What about a fetus?

The environmental exposure of mercury from dental waste is significant. life-cycle is critical in understanding threats posed from mercury in dental amalgam. Mercury gets into the waste stream from dental offices, and from human excrement's of those with dental amalgam, exposing marine life, etc.

[schatsie]

Read the book about VACCINE A....We the American population are a bunch of guinea pigs for Pig Pharma.....NEVER FORGET LOVE CANAL, AUTISM, and ALZHEIMERS and GULF WAR SYNDROME...it is so much easier to say to be personally responsible than FACE THE REALITY of phen-phen, vioxx etc......