The chemical most commonly used to fluoridate America’s drinking water is associated with an increase in children’s blood lead levels. Most studies that purport fluoridation’s safety and effectiveness in preventing cavities use the chemical sodium fluoride. However, most communities inject cheaper silicofluorides (fluosilicic acid and sodium silicofluoride) into their drinking water based on the theory that each chemical comes apart totally, so that freed fluoride can incorporate into tooth enamel. However, the silicofluorides (SiF) do not separate completely, as sodium fluoride does, As a result, water treatment with silicofluorides apparently functions to increase the cellular uptake of lead.

In research published in the International Journal of Environmental Studies (September 1999), Masters and Coplan studied lead screening data from 280,000 Massachusetts children. They found that average blood lead levels are significantly higher in children living in communities whose water is treated with silicofluorides. Data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Evaluation Survey (NHANES III) and a survey of over 120,000 children in New York towns (population 15,000 to 75,000) corroborate this effect. Masters and Coplan reported that some minorities are especially at risk in high SiF exposure areas, where Black and Mexican American children have significantly higher blood lead levels than they do in unfluoridated communities.

Silicofluorides are used by over 90% of U.S. fluoridated towns and cities. Ironically, children with higher blood lead levels also have more tooth decay (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 23/30, 1999 reviewed in a previous newsletter). So water fluoridation may prove to cause tooth decay rather than prevent it. This research is just another block stacked on a giant wall of evidence that proves fluoridation is neither safe nor effective — no matter what fluoride chemical is used.

Lead poisoning can cause learning disabilities, behavioral problems, and at high levels, seizures, coma and even death, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Lead is a highly significant risk factor in predicting higher rates of crime, attention deficit disorder or hyperactivity and learning disabilities. Higher rates of violent crime and substance abuse in silicofluoridated communities were also found in research that is yet to be published.

Web sites:
http://www.fluoride-journal.com/

http://www.cadvision.com/fluoride/

http://SaveTeeth.org/

http://sonic.net/~kryptox/fluoride.htm/

http://www.bruha.com/fluoride/html/f-_in_food.htm/

CONTACT:
Paul Beeber,
J.D., P.O. Box 263, Old Bethpage, NY, 18804-0263,
phone, 516-433-8882,
fax, 516-433-8932,
NYSCOF@aol.com

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ; or Professor Roger D. Masters, Ph.D., 603-646-2153, or fax, 603-646-0508, roger.d.masters@dartmouth.edu This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

In April 1999, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) proclaimed community water fluoridation as one of 10 great public health achievements of the 20th century. The list of achievements, which also includes vaccinations and control of infectious diseases, was developed to highlight significant contributions that impact the health and well being of the public. Additionally, in 2001, the CDC restated, “Community water fluoridation is a safe, effective and inexpensive way to prevent dental caries.” The CDC not only recommended continuation of fluoridation but also called for its adoption in additional U.S. communities.

In August 2002, the U.S. Task Force on Community Preventive Services concluded that the evidence for the effectiveness of fluoridation is strong based on the number and quality of studies that have been done, the magnitude of observed benefits and the consistency of the findings. The Task Force issued a strong recommendation that water fluoridation be included as part of a comprehensive population-based strategy to prevent or control tooth decay in communities.

The American Dental Association (ADA) continues to endorse fluoridation of community water supplies as safe and effective for preventing tooth decay. This support has been the Association’s position since policy was first adopted in 1950. Based on data for 2000, approximately 162 million people (two-thirds of the population) in the United States are served by public water systems that are fluoridated. The ADA, along with state and local dental societies, continues to work with federal, state, and local agencies to increase the number of communities benefiting from water fluoridation.

For more information regarding fluoride and fluoridation, visit the American Dental Association’s “Fluoride and Fluoridation” Web site at http://www.ada.org/goto/fluoride.

American Dental Association

The ADA agrees with the paper’s authors that their work constitutes an “exploratory analysis” that will require scientific confirmation to confirm or refute the findings. The data in this paper is simply one piece of a much more comprehensive 15-year study by the Harvard School of Dental Medicine scheduled for publication later this summer. The principal investigator of the larger Harvard study has advised against drawing conclusions before seeing the full study, which will not suggest an overall association between fluoride and osteosarcoma, he states. Further, an “association” found in one, limited study, falls far below any scientific standard needed to establish a cause-and-effect relationship. In fact, after more than 60 years of rigorous scientific study of water fluoridation, the overwhelming weight of scientific evidences does not show an association with osteosarcoma.

Bottom line: Nothing in this study should deter the public from continuing to enjoy the proven health benefits of optimally fluoridated water.

American Dental Association

Last September, some 2,000 people, mostly MDs, assembled at the Town and Country resort in San Diego to hear the latest research on autism. Following the April 2000 Congressional hearings on autism and vaccines, this epidemic can no longer be ignored.

The figure of one autistic infant for every 150 is now widely documented.

Dr. Stephanie Cave presented enlightening data on mercury toxicity, drawn largely from the brilliant work of Sallie Bernard. Dr. Cave explained how:

By age two, American children have received 237 micrograms of mercury through vaccines alone, which far exceeds current EPA “safe” levels of .1 mcg/kg. per day. That’s one-tenth of a microgram, not one micro gram.

Three days in particular may be singled out as spectacularly toxic for infants:

• Day of birth: hepatitis B-12 mcg mercury | 30 x safe level
• At 4 months: DTaP and HiB on same day – 50 mcg mercury | 60 x safe level
• At 6 months: Hep B, Polio – 62.5 mcg mercury | 78 x safe level
• At 15 months the child receives another 50 mcg | 41 x safe level

These figures are calculated for an infant’s average weight in kilograms for each age.

These one-day blasts of mercury are called “bolus doses”. Although they far exceed “safe” levels, there has never been any research conducted on the toxicity of such bolus doses of mercury given to infants all these years.

Inconceivable
Historically, the toxicity of mercury has been known for more than a century. The Mad Hatter was more than a fantasy character from Alice in Wonderland. Mad Hatter’s disease became well known in England in the mid-1800s, when hat-makers were subject to inhaling the vapors from the mercury-based stiffening compound they used on felt to make top hats.

Sources of Mercury
It is interesting to learn that common household remedies that were used up into the 1960s like mercurochrome and “teething powder” were often the cause of acute mercury poisoning and disease.

In the U.S., EPA mercury toxicity studies have involved contamination from fish, air, and other environmental sources.

Methylmercury has long been associated with serious neurological disorders, demyelinating diseases, gut disease, and visual damage.

The mercury in vaccines, however, is in the form of thimerosal, which is 50 times more toxic than plain old mercury.

Reasons for this include:

• Injected mercury is far more toxic than ingested mercury.
• There’s no blood-brain barrier in infants.
• Mercury accumulates in brain cells and nerves.
• Infants don’t produce bile, which is necessary to excrete mercury.

Thimerosal becomes organic mercury
Once it is in nerve tissue, it is converted irreversibly to its inorganic form. Thimerosal is a much more toxic form of mercury than one would get from eating open-sea fish; it has to do with the difficulty of clearing thimerosal from the blood.

Thimerosal is converted to ethylmercury, an organic form that has a preference for nerve cells.

Without a complete blood-brain barrier, an infant’s brain and spinal cord are sitting ducks. Once in the nerve cells, mercury is changed back to the inorganic form and becomes tightly bound. Mercury can then remain for years, like a time-release capsule, causing permanent degeneration and death of brain cells.

Bernard also notes that the body normally clears mercury by fixing it to bile, but before six months of age, infants don’t produce bile. Result: mercury can’t be excreted.

Four separate government agencies have set safe levels for methylmercury, but no safe levels have ever been set for thimerosal, because thimerosal isn’t included in toxicity studies.

Theoretically, that means that the above excesses of safe levels of mercury on the single days listed above are actually 50 times higher.

Does the fact that the mercury is accompanied by a vaccine somehow place it above scrutiny? The Sallie Bernard study of vaccines and mercury toxicity was probably the main reason Congress began to see the obvious correlation.

Mercury And Vaccines
Here’s a curious “coincidence.” In the late 1930s, Leo Kanner identified autism as a new type of mental disorder. So when was thimerosal introduced into vaccines?

The 1930s
A few years ago, Bernard and her associates began to notice a striking similarity between the symptoms of autism and the symptoms of mercury poisoning. The more research she did, the more it seemed that these two diseases were virtually identical.

Autism and mercury poisoning damage the: brain/nerve cells; eyes; immune system; gastrointestinal system; muscle control; and the speech center.

Although mercury toxicity has been studied for decades, and EPA safety levels have been set, during all that time a child’s greatest exposure to mercury – thimerosal in vaccines – was never even included in the toxicity studies!

The talk has always been about methylmercury from seafood and the environment, totally ignoring the two most toxic sources of mercury for children: vaccines and dental amalgams.

The EPA has no jurisdiction over drugs.
That’s the FDA’s job. This is why vaccines and amalgams don’t even figure into the equation when it comes to setting “safe” levels of mercury.

But the FDA does have jurisdiction over drugs and drug companies, right? And over drug company publications, like the Merck Manual, the standard cookbook for drugs and diseases found in every doctor’s office in the world.

Surely the FDA, as the government agency charged with safeguarding the nation’s health, would want the section on mercury toxicity to warn doctors about the two biggest sources for children: thimerosal and dental amalgams, wouldn’t you think?

Yet looking at the Merck Manual (1999), in the section on mercury poisoning (p. 2636), thimerosal and dental amalgams again are not even mentioned!

How can this be, when mercury is widely acknowledged as the third most deadly toxin in the world and thimerosal and amalgams dwarf the trace amounts of mercury from fish and other environmental sources of mercury? Only one thing can a blackout information over an entire area of study for years at a time in this way – big money.

Such an omission probably wouldn’t have anything to do with the revolving door that exists between the FDA; the EPA; the NIH; “and the sweet positions held by their members before and after those grueling years of public service; or with the 800 waivers of the conflict of interest rule that the FDA has granted in the past two years to “experts,” who are paid consultants to the drug companies-consultants who are also members of the FDA advisory committees that make decisions about whether or not to approve vaccines and drugs…” (USA Today, Sept. 25, 2000)
No, of course not.

Soaking up the Mercury
In the San Diego conference on autism, Dr. Amy Holmes gave perhaps the only lucid presentation about treatment. She explained how chelating drugs alone, which go through the blood like Pac Man munching up mercury, don’t do much good for autism.

That’s because most mercury clears from the blood very soon. Mercury in thimerosal is stored in the gut, liver and brain, and as previously mentioned, becomes very tightly bound to the cells. Once inside those cells, or inside the blood-brain barrier, the mercury is reconverted back to its inorganic form.

Locked into these cells, the mercury can then do either immediate cell damage or become latent and cause the onset of autism, brain disorders, or digestive chaos years later.

Dr. Holmes reported success using alphalipoic acid as an agent to cross the blood-brain barrier to soak up mercury. Once the mercury is brought back into the bloodstream, standard chelators like DMSA can then take it out.

Dr. Holmes has used her protocol on about 300 autistics so far, and shows consistent increases in IQ scores.

FDA: Protector of Whom?
In the face of all this new awareness, it was astounding that in July 2000 the FDA came out with the “parallel-universe” pronouncement that “vaccines have safe levels of mercury.”
Especially after their 1998 position:
“… over-the-counter drug products containing thimerosal and other mercury forms are not generally recognized as safe and effective.”
As if there were any doubt as to who’s really running the show, inconceivable also is the impotence of FDA’s request to the vaccine manufacturers to discontinue the use of thimerosal in vaccines (LINK TO ARTICLE ON SITE) The same month that MMWR published this, the CDC made the same milquetoast request.

It’s a bit like saying: “Hey guys, since all these kids are turning into vegetables and most of our researchers know it’s the mercury, would you mind not putting any more thimerosal in your vaccines, please?

No hurry, though. Whenever you’re ready. No need to dump all those batches of vaccine just because people are finding out it’s the mercury that’s destroying children’s brain cells.”

The members of the FDA who decide which vaccines get approved make up the advisory board. In his recent House investigation on vaccines, Rep. Dan Burton found out that financial statements of advisory board members are “incomplete.”

Noting that this is the only branch of government that allows incomplete financials, in September 2000, Burton called the advisory board’s sweetheart arrangements with the vaccine manufacturers a “violation of the public trust.”

This includes 70 percent of advisory board members owning stock in vaccines, owning patents on vaccines, and accepting salaries and benefits as employees of the drug companies.

A Matter of Trust
Still think you can trust the government or your physician with your children’s blood? Despite the facts and events cited above, consider this joint statement of the U.S. Public Health Services and the American Academy of Pediatrics:

“There is a significant safety margin incorporated into all the acceptable mercury exposure limits. There are no data or evidence of any harm caused by the level of exposure that some children may have encountered in following the existing immunization schedule … Infants and children who have received thimerosal-containing vaccines do not need to be tested for mercury exposure” (TRY TO REPLACE THIS WITH LINK FROM SITE MMWR, vol. 45, 1999).

These are blatant Orwellian distortions. No harm?

• What about the autism epidemic and all the evidence linking it with mercury cited above?
• What about the single day doses of mercury cited above that are dozens of times in excess of the EPA’s own safety levels?
• If everything is so safe, then why did they ask the vaccine pushers to kindly discontinue thimerosal from vaccines as soon as possible at the end of this same statement?

It is beyond the scope of this paper to really go into the politics of mercury. In researching mercury toxicity, a whole area of “dry rot” has been unearthed that deserves its own story. This is the shocking story of how the American Dental Association and the California Dental Association have been systematically hiding the truth about mercury toxicity in fillings for decades.

Silver fillings aren’t just silver. They’re 50 percent mercury and extremely toxic; every dentist knows it (www.altcorp.com,http://www.amalgam.org/).

In a ludicrous blast of irony, both the ADA and the CDA have inserted into their “code of ethics” strict commandments forbidding dentists from ever revealing to patients the realities of mercury toxicity.

No dentist is allowed to recommend removal of mercury amalgams for health reasons, nor may tell the patient about mercury toxicity even if the patient asks. This gag order has been in place for since the beginning of American dentistry. Exaggeration? Check their websites out: www.amalgam.org

Do you think dentists put mercury into their own families’ teeth? Ask them. Anyone who is not a dentist is not constrained by the gag order, imposed on American dentists by the ADA, against telling patients what many perceptive researchers in the field of mercury toxicity already know: that no children should ever get mercury amalgam fillings.

Laughingstock of the West
Researchers across Europe are generally appalled at the massive amounts of vaccines given to American children under two years old. Although Europeans are not as obsessed with vaccines as we are, they do vaccinate.

But most of Europe gives very few vaccinations to children under two years old, primarily because of the unformed gut, immune system, and blood-brain barrier.

This intellectual isolation of ours regarding vaccines is a testimony to the suffocating “brain control” exerted on us by the popular press and all media. Like sheep to the slaughter, we don’t know enough to be appalled by our own ignorance.

Autistic Gut
Headlining the September 2000 San Diego Conference was Andrew Wakefield, the British surgeon whose shocking new discoveries show that mercury toxicity alone is not the only factor linking vaccines with the autism epidemic. Dr. Wakefield’s research centers around the MMR vaccine – measles/mumps/rubella – which does not contain thimerosal.

Expanding on his presentation at the April 2000 Burton hearings, Dr. Wakefield explained how at least three-quarters of autistics have pathologically blocked bowels, due to the huge swelling of the tissue lining the intestine.

In virtually every autistic patient they examined, this nodular hyperplasia is both an immune response and an autoimmune response that Wakefield and O’Leary have clearly linked to the presence of measles virus from the MMR shot. No other virus was found in those cells.

It is a new bowel pathology.
Wakefield showed graphs of the U.S. and U.K. 10 years apart that were identical in tracing the skyrocketing incidence of autism just after the MMR vaccine was introduced.

He also showed how the incidence of measles had dropped over 85 percent on its own before the MMR was introduced.

One incredible study cited by Wakefield showed how 76 percent of children whose mothers were exposed to atypical measles became autistic after the MMR shot! He called this a “background susceptibility” or predisposition to autism.

Wakefield reminds us that in neither country have there ever been comparative studies on giving multiple vaccines (polyvalent) on the same day.

This custom of ours, with both the DPT and the MMR, is not scientific by any stretch, and is primarily for the convenience of those administering the shots, and those being paid per vaccine. As a result, there is a good chance of geometric ill effects.

Then Wakefield cited the original MMR study (Buynak, Journal of the American Medical Association 1969, vol. 207).

Not only was the safety of multiple vaccines never mentioned, there was no follow-up to the study to see if their conclusions were correct.

In the usual manner of testing vaccines on the live population, MMR was simply tacked onto the mandatory schedule, and we’ve never looked back.

Despite studies in 1981 on Air Force personnel showing major synergistic adverse effects in the gut from the combination of measles and rubella vaccines, the mandatory schedule went unchanged.

A Glimmer of Hope
Despite these formidable obstacles, doubts are creeping into the overall public “consciousness” about the safety of vaccines. At one in 150, the fact of autism as an epidemic can no longer be covered up.

The work of Wakefield, O’Leary, Megson and Bernard is getting more and more difficult to explain away. Rep. Dan Burton seems relentless in his efforts to acquaint Congress with the meretricious relationship between the FDA Advisory Committee and the vaccine manufacturers.

The massive advertising campaign about the safety of vaccines in the popular media, which is certain to be stepped up in the next few months, is going to look very hollow in the light of clean, unbiased research that is not funded by parties who stand to make billions from certain predetermined results.

And the internet makes this well-referenced, scientific work accessible to the public without the usual monodimensional smokescreen from the popular press.

Ultimately, the value of the San Diego “Conference on Autism” was its signal that autism will not be allowed to slip from the public awareness, like so many other feature stories that come and go. The simple truth has been unveiled, and anyone who looks can see it clearly: our prime question should not be asking how we can cure autism once it occurs. The evidence is now overwhelming that in most cases, this new epidemic that we call autism is a preventable disease.

www.thedoctorwithin.com

by Tim O’Shea,DC

]]> http://www.eastgrandrapidsdentist.com/autism-and-mercury/feed/ 0 http://www.eastgrandrapidsdentist.com/smoking-tooth/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=smoking-tooth http://www.eastgrandrapidsdentist.com/smoking-tooth/#comments Fri, 16 Jul 2010 05:14:28 +0000 Dr. Kevin Flood http://www.eastgrandrapidsdentist.com/?p=147 Studies by Clarkson (1998) and the World Health Organization found that one silver amalgam filling could release anywhere between 3-18 m gm/day of mercury.

Studies by Clarkson (1998) and the World Health Organization found that one silver amalgam filling could release anywhere between 3-18 m gm/day of mercury. A Canadian conference suggested a Tolerable Daily Intake (TDI) for mercury of only 1 m gm/day for a person weighing about 150 pounds. Simple math People with more than 2-3 amalgams, therefore are above the occupationally exposed acceptable levels. In fact, in a study done by Dr. Mark Richardson of Ottawa, Canada at the request of Health and Welfare Canada, it was seen that any more than 3 amalgams in the head of an adult were akin to occupational exposure. In other words, gave off as much mercury as if the person worked in an occupation where they were exposed to mercury on a daily basis.

Mechanics of Toxicity
Mercury disrupts your body’s biochemistry and physiology in a number of ways:
Disturbances in the production of larger molecules such as proteins and the nucleic acids which are the core of DNA and RNA.

1. Disruption in the balance of calcium…not good news when you consider how often we hear of people being diagnosed with osteoporosis. Another point in this area is that the liver and the kidney are two major organs effected by mercury and compromised in their ability to function under mercury’s influence. Vitamin D, which is produced in the skin, is augmented to the much more active hormone forms first by the liver, then the kidney. If their function has been debilitated, the conversion to the more active Vitamin D forms may not occur as well. These activated forms are essential for proper calcium uptake and utilization, hence another nail in the coffin of calcium balance.
2. Free radical injury to the cells of the body, resulting in oxidative stress. What this means is that the free radicals, which are produced as a result of mercury’s interaction with the cell, result in cellular damage, particularly to the membranes of the cell.
3. Many proteins need to have phosphorus derivatives attached to them, and mercury will get in the way of this. This may explain, at least to some degree, the incredible fatigue mercury patients experience. The molecule in your body responsible for energy –ATP- looses a phosphate group when you use it and becomes ADP. Then another phosphate must be added to “refurbish” it to ATP, so your body can reuse it and mercury gets in the way of this.
4. The kidney is of great concern in mercury toxicity. In people who are occupationally exposed, studies have seen the incredible cell damage and protein leakage from the kidney. In the sensitive mercury patient with even just a few amalgam fillings, the same damage can be seen. The general public may show varying levels of this damage. The World Health Organization in 1991 concluded that urinary mercury of more than 100 m gm/gm creatinine (about 80 m gm/m3) or more increases the risk of neurological (tumour development) and protein in the urine leading to kidney damage.
5. Research in the past few years, particularly from Europe has shown the devastating consequences mercury has on the effectiveness of the white blood cell of your immune system. It also can be part of the cause in autoimmune diseases such as the more serious arthritides, allergies, and some researchers believe, multiple sclerosis, lupus and Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Mercury definitely has the ability to cross the placental membranes and so cause health disorders in the unborn child. In studies done by Marsh et al in 1981 and 1987, they showed that mothers with hair mercury levels of 70-640 m g/gm of hair during pregnancy have 30% increased risk of psychomotor and other neurological disorders in their infants. Even as low as 10-20 m g/gm can increase risk to 5% (WHO 1990

Symptomatic Relief After Amalgam Removal
The statistics listed were compiled by the Foundation For Toxic Free Dentistry (FTTD) on 1569 patients from 6 different reports:

Selected Health Symptom Analysis of 1569 Patients Before and After Elimination of Their Mercury-Containing Dental Fillings

% of Total	Symptoms	Total No.	No. Improved Or Cured	% of Cure or Improvement
14%	ALLERGY	221	196	89%
5%	ANXIETY	86	80	93%
5%	BAD TEMPER	81	68	89%
6%	BLOATING	88	70	88%
6%	BLOOD PRESSURE PROBLEMS	99	53	54%
5%	CHEST PAINS	79	69	87%
22%	DEPRESSION	347	315	91%
22%	DIZZINESS	343	301	88%
45%	FATIGUE	705	603	86%
15%	GASTROINTESTINAL PROBLEMS	231	192	83%
8%	GUM PROBLEMS	129	121	94%
34%	HEADACHES	531	460	87%
3%	MIGRANE HEADACHES	45	39	87%
12%	INSOMNIA	187	146	78%
10%	IRREGULAR HEARTBEAT	159	139	87%
8%	IRRITABILITY	132	119	90%
17%	LACK OF CONCENTRATION	270	216	80%
6%	LACK OF ENERGY	91	88	97%
17%	MULTPILE SCLEROSIS	113	86	76%
17%	METALLIC TASTE	260	247	95%
7%	MULTPILE SCLEROSIS	113	86	76%
8%	MUSCLE TREMOR	126	104	83%
10%	NERVOUSNESS	158	131	83%
8%	NUMBNESS ANYWHERE	118	97	82%
20%	SKIN DISTURBANCES	310	251	81%
9%	SORE THROAT	149	128	86%
6%	TACHYCARDIA	97	68	70%
4%	THYROID PROBLEMS	56	44	79%
12%	ULCERS & SORES (ORAL CAVITY)	189	162	86%
7%	URINARY TRACT PROBLEMS	115	87	76%

Common Sources of Mercury

• Mining, smelters, combustion of fossil fuel and refining of gold.
• Used in chloralkali industry in the production of chlorine and caustic soda containing products.
• Used in electrical industry, in production of thermometers and barometer, fluorescent tubes and alkaline batteries.
• Dental fillings (WHO 1991a)- the largest exposure to the world’s population for non-occupationally exposed people.

Dr. Kevin Flood

]]> http://www.eastgrandrapidsdentist.com/smoking-tooth/feed/ 0 http://www.eastgrandrapidsdentist.com/american-dental-association/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=american-dental-association http://www.eastgrandrapidsdentist.com/american-dental-association/#comments Fri, 16 Jul 2010 04:14:06 +0000 Dr. Kevin Flood http://www.eastgrandrapidsdentist.com/?p=143 Written by American Dental Association
Sunday, 03 January 2010 22:46

November 14, 2002

Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, thank you on behalf of the American Dental Association (ADA) for inviting us to testify today. The ADA is very pleased to speak to the safety and efficacy of dental amalgam and the Association’s position that every dental patient should have an opportunity to make an informed choice about his or her dental treatment options.

If the Association believed that dental amalgam posed a threat to the health of dental patients, we would advise our members to stop using it. But the best and latest available scientific evidence indicates that it is safe. Banning amalgam would deprive patients and dentists of an essential treatment option that is clinically and scientifically substantiated to be safe and effective.

The ultimate decision about what filling materials to use is best determined by the patient in consultation with the dentist. Toward that end, the ADA has developed a chart that compares restorative dental materials. The chart provides easily understood comparative information on thirteen distinct factors, including durability, clinical considerations, leakage and recurrent decay, and resistance to wear and fracture. This information sheet has been widely circulated through ADA publications.

Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.) in April introduced H.R. 4163, the Mercury in Dental Filling Disclosure and Prohibition Act, which would ban the use of dental amalgam by 2007. Congresswoman Watson’s attempt to ban dental amalgam because of concern for patient safety flies in the face of accepted scientific information about the safety of dental amalgam.

]]> http://www.eastgrandrapidsdentist.com/american-dental-association/feed/ 0 http://www.eastgrandrapidsdentist.com/dental-amalgam/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dental-amalgam http://www.eastgrandrapidsdentist.com/dental-amalgam/#comments Fri, 16 Jul 2010 04:03:18 +0000 Dr. Kevin Flood http://www.eastgrandrapidsdentist.com/?p=139 Panel Report Finds Health Claims Against Dental Amalgam Lack Scientific Evidence

Telephone: 312-440-2806
4 May 2004

CHICAGO , December 9, 2004—A review of seven years worth of scientific studies concludes there is insufficient evidence “of a link between dental mercury and health problems, except in rare instances of allergic reactions,” according to a report released today by the Life Sciences Research Office, Inc. (LSRO) in Bethesda, MD.

LSRO conducted the independent scientific review of dental amalgam at the request of a work group made up of representatives from the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Public Health Service. The report, Review and Analysis of the Literature on the Potential Adverse Health Effects of Dental Amalgam, updates and reaches the same conclusion as two earlier reviews by the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services of the dental material, which is an alloy made of silver, copper, tin and zinc, bound by elemental mercury. The silver-colored material is widely used to fill dental cavities.

“This report further substantiates the American Dental Association’s position that dental amalgam is a safe, effective material to fill cavities, based on science and clinical experience,” said Dr. James B. Bramson, ADA executive director. “Countless people’s teeth have been saved by using amalgam, which is one of the most durable and affordable cavity filling materials available, especially for large cavities in the back teeth where chewing forces are the greatest.”

The LSRO report was based on a review of nearly a thousand papers from peer-reviewed scientific literature along with public comments submitted to the Federal Register and involved a multidisciplinary panel of experts in fields such as toxicology, allergy, pediatrics, epidemiology and pathology.

Established in 1962, LSRO is a non-profit, independent organization with a worldwide network of experts that studies issues in biomedicine, healthcare, nutrition, food safety and the environment.

About the American Dental Association
The not-for-profit ADA is the nation’s largest dental association, representing more than 149,000 members. The premier source of oral health information, the ADA has advocated for the public’s health and promoted the art and science of dentistry since 1859. The ADA’s state-of-the-art research facilities develop and test dental products and materials that have advanced the practice of dentistry and made the patient experience more positive. The ADA Seal of Acceptance long has been a valuable and respected guide to consumer and professional products.

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