Once again the media is out to sensationalize the debate by conjuring up images of daily vomiting, years of sinus congestion, and children who can’t go an hour without a seizure or two. And once again, it is mercury that is the alleged culprit.

If it really were as bad as it appears for the few people that are willing to testify before the panel, don’t you think that there would be a significantly larger population of people affected by mercury poisoning?

Four years ago, a panel decided that further study was necessary to understand whether amalgams give off more vapors when being placed or removed versus the amount of mercury vapor produced with chewing and brushing.

Maybe they were on to something there! What the FDA should do is launch a study of mercury levels in the blood, urine, and body tissues of the dentists who regularly place and remove amalgams, correlating symptoms described by those afflicted with mercury toxicity with the dentists in the study. If those symptoms are consistent in the dentists who have high levels of mercury, then go from there to decide whether amalgams are truly a problem.

The ADA stands behind the science. And until it is refuted, they are doing the right thing by not wavering on their position.

UPDATE – December 20th, 2010

Last week, an advisory panel to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) convened a professional panel review to again look at the safety issues associated with mercury amalgam in dentistry. A group of scientists and dental and medical professionals, lead by the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology (IAOMT), had called for FDA to reconsider its July 2009 “no risk” classification of mercury fillings. The FDA panel concluded that there are no huge scientific flaws in the agency’s 2009 finding that mercury-based dental fillings are safe for adults and children aged 6 years and older. The panel, however, recommended that the FDA look at more data, including the latest data, on the possible health risks dental amalgam poses to pregnant women and their fetuses and to young children, particularly nursing infants whose mothers have these fillings. The panel also said the FDA should consider adding warnings for these groups to the material’s product instructions.
 The ADA commended the panel’s call for continued research while offering support for the FDA’s current amalgam regulation. The panel’s call for more scientific data acknowledged concerns of dental amalgam opponents who link mercury exposure to dozens of diseases ranging from autism to Alzheimer’s disease.

This is about dental pollution, people. It may be ignored by mainstream science, but this problem is real enough to sell newspapers, magazines, and make you read online articles.

What I’ve Heard About Dental Pollution

Everywhere I go I hear about how it’s not fair that the citizens of cities have no choice about the fluoride in their drinking water. Sure, it makes teeth stronger, but there’s a conspiracy of pollution! And it’s the people who are so poor that they can’t even afford cups, they have to tilt their heads sideways to drink under the sink faucet, they are the ones who get the most fluoride in their bodies.

Does fluoride save lives like chlorine does? Wait, I didn’t say that, because it’s going to sound like I am in favor of putting poisons in the water.

You dentists also are protecting the right to fix the holes in people’s mouths with evil substances. If you drill a tooth and put in a silver filling, you have to make the filling soft with toxic mercury. Why can’t you just heat up the silver and pour it in the cavity?

The high road dentists are no better, with their lady-man BPA-leaching plastic composites. I’d rather gnaw on a Nalgene bottle and take my chances with it than have an oil-slick wedged between my teeth 24/7.  The recent petroleum price increases are nothing compared to the cost in human lives.

The other thing that’s polluting our mouths is lead. There’s been lead found in ceramic/metal crowns. They say these crowns come from China. We like to blame everything on China.  But the real reason that there’s lead coming from the dental labs is because the cheap dentists have forced lab technicians to scavenge for scrap metal by secretly dumpster-diving for X-ray film packets.

My shaman tells me that all the metal he sees in people’s mouths is creating imbalance in their meridians. This pollution is caused by all the various metals sending out galvanic currents, which turns our mouths into electrolyte-driven batteries. It scares me even today when I see that trick with the guy who sticks the end of a lightbulb in his mouth and it turns on. I know he’s dying from galvanic currents just for a laugh.

One more pollutant that is caused by the well-meaning but unenlightened dentists of the world is when they leave a dead tooth in a living mouth. Would you leave a cadaver just laying around with living people? Well, this is just what is done when a dentist fills the root canal of a tooth and just leaves the dead shell of a tooth in place.

I’m no Navajo with my sand art, but I sketched out this modern flow chart to help us understand where all this pollution is leading:

The pollutants are circled in red. Only one treatment is circled in green because it doesn’t involve dental pollution.

With only two choices in life if we find that we need a dentist – a polluted mouth or the totally toothless gums of a baby – all we can do is pray to our ancestors to give us naturally strong, healthy teeth.

My life has been one of ignorance until now. I have been going to the dentist regularly, and have had various pollutants placed in my mouth. I still have all of my teeth and have no ill symptoms from the poisons. Should I be grateful, or should I be worried? Are teeth worth it, in the end?

Six Degrees Of Dental Pollution

Here are various tests that you can either do in your office or send home with patients to make sure that you aren’t polluting their mouths:

Fluoride: http://www.hach.com

Bisphenol-A: http://www.biosense.com

Mercury: http://www.heavymetalstest.com/_hgkit.php

Lead: http://www.zefon.com/store/leadcheck-swabs.html

Galvanic Currents: http://www.biomeridian.com/devices.htm

Root Canal Therapy: http://www.holisticdentist.com/articles/root-canal-treatment.html

I know that this isn’t Keep America Beautiful or any other grand public service announcement, but it’s important for dentists to understand the consequences of their actions. And sorry about the waterworks; you know how pollution is a touchy subject for me.