Your teeth are killing you -- The Amalgam Myth

Some believe that amalgam fillings are deadly. Or, at the very least, harmful.http://www.earthtym.net/merc-links.htm DAMS - Dental Amalgam Mercury Solutions - Info & Resources Oh noes! 3,000,000,000,000,000 mercury atoms!Of course, this is rubbish.The research literature, involving many retrospective studies, has shown the safety of dental amalgam.Reinhardt JW. Side-effects: mercury contribution to body burden from dental amalgam. Adv Dent Res 1992;6:110-3.ADA Council on Scientific Affairs. Dental amalgam: update on safety concerns.
JADA 1998;129:494-503.Saxe SR, Wekstein MW, Kryscio RJ, et al. Alzheimer’s disease, dental amalgam and mercury.
JADA 1999;130:191-9.Mackert JR, Berglund A. Mercury exposure from dental amalgam fillings: absorbed dose and the potential for adverse effects.
Crit Rev Oral Biol Med 1997;8:410-36.Osborne JW, Albino JE. Psychological and medical effects of mercury intake from dental amalgam: a status report.
Amer J Dent 1999;12:151-6.Kingman A, Albertini T, Brown LJ. Mercury concentrations in urine and whole blood associated with amalgam exposure in a U.S. military population.
J Dent Res 1998;77:461-71.Amalgams have been used for over 100 years. Literally billions of amalgam fillings -- with no ill effect.The National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the Alzheimer’s and Related Diseases Association have concluded that there is no association between amalgam and human illness.Yet, there are those who insist there is a link between amalgam fillings and death/debilitating disease.What say you, EvC?

Well I guess I'm the one you wanted to talk with here, though it has to be said I would have wanted to wait on this topic. I don't have my evidence immediately to hand and I'm spending too much time on this forum. Nevertheless, I will make an introductory response.Watch this video by the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology please. It's only 8 1/2 minutes long. It's called "The Smoking Tooth".As with vaccines, the safety of amalgams has not been demonstrated. There have been no large-scale long-term epidemiological studies performed.Supposing that such a study proved that amalgams were harmful to some, or even all, people? Can you imagine the court cases? There is a vested interest in preventing this kind of information from emerging.from the CDC: The following information is from the CDC again: So one, mercury is absorbed from amalgam fillings. Two, there are many "unknowns" about this. Why isn't someone trying to find out then?From a different pdf file on the same site: Estimates from studies are uncertain. They range from >27ug of elemental mercury uptake per day, to 1.2.Various studies cited by this article have shown that dentists have been exposed to significant concentrations of mercury vapor, and that these amounts appear to have been reduced in recent years due to better mercury hygiene and the reduced use of amalgam restorations. Here is a well-cited article about the exposure of dentists to mercury worldwide, some of their symptoms, and the contribution to the environment from human waste containing mercury from amalgams. It is a sobering read.You said: How do you know what the "ill effects" of prolonged low-level exposure are? Just because conditions like fibromyalgia, autism, mental illness, and many others are not consciously linked to mercury from amalgams, how does that mean that there is definitely no connection?Hypothetical case. A 5-year-old boy. His mother had 10 amalgam fillings present in her mouth while she was pregnant, and during pregnancy she chewed gum and drank coffee, which would have increased her exposure to the mercury from her amalgams. The mercury was passed on in utero and in her breast milk. This boy now has a few amalgam fillings of his own, eats fish or shellfish weekly, and has had a flu jab (which contains thimerosol). What do you think this boy's overall body burden of mercury is? Would you logically expect him to be well?Before you cite any more studies, I want to know who conducted them, what the possible conflicts of interest were, and who paid for the studies. Anyone who wants to debunk alt med claims and who has the money and the connections can get studies done that show negative results. Studies appearing in prestigious journals are used here as irrefutible proof that an assertion must be correct, but I think it's very important to look into all the details before it's truly valid to make such a conclusion. As we've seen here, even the CDC concedes that exposure to amalgams and amalgam vapor by dentists and dental patients can pose a risk. Any study indicating otherwise is highly suspect.

Questioning the motives and integrity of sources of information that disagree with you is something you do a lot. I don't know why this has to be repeatedly pointed out to you, but people are people wherever you go. The proclivity for errors and bias and shenanigans will be roughly equal on both sides of almost any issue, except that in mainstream science it is more difficult to get away with it because findings without a firm basis in reality will be found out.In all your threads you appear to be raising the same basic point over and over again, pointing out that there may be effects that only manifest themselves over periods of time longer than the studies, or that affect such a small percentage of the population that studies of practical size cannot detect it, or that the effects lurk just outside the boundaries of detectability by current means. I think we can all grant that these are possibilities, but they are as much possibilities for aspirin and sudafed as they are for mercury amalgam.Any effect that all these studies cannot detect must be a very small effect. The argument that there is nonetheless a real effect cannot be automatically dismissed, but the degree of alarm raised is far greater than the apparent risk could possibly justify. The mental effort you put into worry and concern about things at best on the margins of detectability would be much better spent on health problems with such comparatively huge effects that we know without doubt they are real, such as cigarette smoking or alcohol consumption or diets high in fat and so forth.--Percy

No reason to worry then? Have you had a look at the evidence here about amalgams? They could be having an acute effect on some people's health, and a low-level effect on many peoples' health. You will not be surprised to find out that I talk on a forum for people who think they've had ill health due to amalgams. No doubt a number of them are in the wrong place. However a number of them also claim to be feeling significantly better since amalgam removal. Again, these are very ill people who went through the conventional system and were failed. People often turn to amalgam removal as a "last resort" when nothing else helps.Why should I sit here worrying about cigarette smoking or alcohol? The dangers of these things are well known. If a person chooses to use alcohol or tobacco then they usually understand the risks involved. My husband smokes, has tried to quit dozens of times, and I support him as best I can.My diet is fairly high in fat. What's critical is the kind of fat. Many saturated fats are actually good for you. Most vegetable fats which are touted as heart-healthy are anything but. I do pass this information on to people who are interested.I think it's quite likely that amalgam fillings will be phased out in my lifetime. The AMA, the FDA etc. would probably prefer to do it quietly so as not to stir up health panics and court cases with damages in the trillions of dollars. I care because I've seen people being harmed, and the authorities do not acknowledge that harm. You know what you're doing if you inhale on a cigarette. Do you know what you are doing when you let a dentist put mercury in your mouth?

needs more fish plz. must kill ovaries.

Hi LindaLou,You're again just using a message as an opportunity to repeat your position, which we're all already very familiar with.The point I made was that you keep making the same arguments. In your first message that I replied to, you argued that there may be effects that only manifest themselves over periods of time longer than the studies, or that affect such a small percentage of the population that studies of practical size cannot detect it, or that the effects lurk just outside the boundaries of detectability by current means.The response to this argument is always the same: things that are of so little danger we can't even construct studies to detect them in any reliable way are not much to worry about. In order to be so difficult to detect, the harm must be either non-existent or very tiny, or the percentage of the population which is vulnerable must be either zero or very tiny. You could probably conduct the same studies on chocolate and find larger effects.Your latest message contains the other form of your argument, anecdotal data. Evidence from groups of self-selected self-analyzed people are useless. The plural of anecdote is anecdotes, not scientific evidence. If you don't accept that anecdotal arguments are worthless when compared to scientific data then that is the issue you must engage. Continuing to offer anecdotal data just convinces people you don't know what you're doing.--Percy

Studies can be biased and flawed. That's why we have studies like the ones MBG quoted, which presumably say that amalgam is harmless. The EPA doesn't think so, they tell dentists to dispose of it as toxic waste.We do have the means here and now to do proper tests. They aren't going to be done by the ADA are they? Some have been done by others. Did you by any chance watch the Smoking Tooth vid?Like I said in the vaccine thread, it's clear I've got a very different angle on what I see as truth. We're not going to agree on this and more arguing is a waste of my time and energy. If you can find someone else to take up my position you can carry on, otherwise you're welcome to discuss amongst yourselves.

I personally restrict what materials I put into my mouth for fillings because I'm quite convinced that some fillings can release mercury, 'specially the 'silver' fillings. The only person I have for this information is my mother, though, who refused silver fillings when I was a child.I'm not going to take sides, however, but will look into getting more information.

This is irrelevant. And it is off topic. Please open an workplace mercury thread if you feel the need to discuss this further. This is untrue. I suggest you take a look at the cites in the first post.Many of the JADA papers are available to the public free of charge. Have you read beyond the introduction of the CDC pdf you are citing?There are many, many papers cited that show no effect from amalgam fillings. Again. This is irrelevant. Please take your workplace exposure concerns to another thread. Hypotheticals have no place here. I would ask that you support your arguments with evidence, not fantasy. You've quote-mined the CDC document.I, on the other hand, took the time to read the document. I looked at the relevant data on amalgams.The CDC doesn't "concede" there is a danger.Since you've chosen to ignore the 333 page CDC pdf, here's a much easier snippet from the CDC.CDC - Page Not Found This was written in 2001. Since then there have been over 400 studies done. Just this past April, a federal appeals court dismissed a suit seeking FDA restrictions on amalgams.http://www.ada.org/...ources/pubs/adanews/adanewsarticle.asp One final quote from the CDC:

LindaLou, you are again taking my message as an opportunity to just reassert your position and are avoiding addressing what I actually say. The conversation cannot help but be repetitious if you ignore what other people are saying.Biases and flaws exist everywhere, and far more in your anecdotal accounts than in the scientific studies of mainstream medicine. Career and monetary motivations exist as much in alternative medicine as anywhere else, and alternative medicine is for the most part not under FDA regulation, and not particularly inclined to follow scientific methods. They've been done. Yet again you demonstrate that your criteria for accepting studies depends whether their findings agree with you rather than the degree to which they follow accepted scientific protocols.Let me say this again. You're accepting and rejecting studies based upon whether they agree with what you already believe, and not upon the quality of the study. This is a sure way to become entrenched in your beliefs.And let me also say once again that your approach is the hallmark of quackery, which is almost always accompanied by questioning honesty and motives and cherry picking data rather than by anything scientific. It's a perfect formula for arriving at wrong conclusions. Yet another charge that the ADA is dishonest, eh, LindaLou? Don't agree with someone, attack their integrity! What a wonderful person you are! What you've got is a surefire way of being wrong. We're certainly not going to agree on anything that you refuse to talk about it. The key issue is that you keep offering up ad hominem and anecdote in place of scientific evidence and then for some reason resent it when you're not complemented on your approach. There was another person like you here not so long ago who blamed everyone and everything else for the rejection of her ideas, and every so often she would just pick up her marbles and run off. By my count this is at least the 3rd time you've announced you're done in a thread, but in the past, just like Faith, you're back again in a short while. Why don't you just skip the melodramatics and stick to the issues. You can start by actually addressing the rebuttals and just skip the repetition of your assertions.--Percy

It appears that we need to go back to the message 3 which you cited and determine if you have adequately addressed the unequality issue.LindaLou, Purple and I have all three cited how science has not supported some medical practices which are allowed. We have shown that bias because of profit motive has favored toxic drug with side effects which vary all the way from organ malfunction to high incidence of death whereas with herbal and other naturopath treatments if the same side effects were found bans would be imposed, even if the severity and incidence of those side effects were much lower.Mobiogirl made a big deal out of one 20 year old death incidence on a product or practice related to naturopath (abe: in another thread), if I recall correctly whereas I responded that scores of thousands of deaths due to prescription drugs are tolerated by mainstream science healthcare methodology.How can you be so critical of LindaLou when in fact you and your side of the debate chooses to ignore evidences such as the above. Do we need to go back over the whole thread and rehash all of this?(ABE: Some of my above comment was mistakenly applied to another thread but perhaps the points made will serve to apply to this thread as well.) Edited by Buzsaw, : Clarification

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present is forever consuming the eternal future and extending the infinite past.

Buz, as an admin, you should know that dragging a thread off topic is verboten.I would ask that you take your "Prescription Drugs Are Deadly" concerns and your "BigPharma is Evil" concerns to a new thread.btw. You do not, sir.I suggest before casting aspersions you do me the courtesy of referencing the original post and get your story straight.Edited by molbiogirl, : No reason given.

My apologies, Mobiogirl. I see what happened. Percy cited a message 3 and I assumed it was from the holistic thread. Thinking I was posting my response to Percy in the same thread which he linked I went ahead and submitted the message. Perhaps I should move the message to the proper thread.

Interesting link that explains due to mercury bonds themselves are weak mercury molecule to mercury molecule which is why it vaporizes so quickly. Its questions that the mecurry to metal bonds too are weak which is why they are continuously naturally broken.This is why after only 26 days sheep and monkeys studies using radioactive mercury from the fillings was said identical in sheep and monkey tissue analysis as revealed by whole body image scan and tissue analysis. link source given: FASEB J. 3:2641-2646; 1989Its interesting that some of the studies run by the ADA never tested feces but tested the urine and blood which is known to be low in mercury. Such bias by those we entrust with the health of our children, etc...---------------------------------------------amalgam is a mixture of metals that are not in an ionic state, and hence do not form an ionic bond, but instead form weak, uncharged metallic bonds. This is a problem because, by itself, metallic mercury has a very low evaporation temperature and readily turns into a vapor. Here's an interesting fact I learned recently: ever wonder why mercury is the only metal that is a liquid at room temperature? Because it has relatively weak bonds with itself (i.e., mercury molecule-to-mercury molecule), which is also why it vaporizes so readily. This process is not stopped by the weak bonds that mercury makes with the other metals in amalgam, which are continuously, naturally broken. And, consider that approximately 80% of inhaled mercury is absorbed through the lungs by humans. Additional mercury from the breakdown of amalgam is also dissolved in saliva and swallowed, some of which is absorbed.In response to critics' claims that the sheep amalgam results were not applicable to humans because sheep chew more frequently, a similar study was undertaken on monkeys, which have chewing patterns more similar to humans. The results were pretty much identical to the sheep studies.MercuryLife: IntroductionDespite the fact that mercury is excreted primary through the bilary (liver) system into the feces, the authors did not report any measures of mercury in the children’s feces.Evidence Based Dentistry: Critique Childrens Mercury Exposure StudiesEdited by reversespin, : No reason given.

Here is the direct link to the pdf:Just a moment... There are a lot of problems with the methodology, not just "sheep chewing". The follow up "monkey study" is not available at the FASEB site.Here is the abstract, which is available: Given the unforgivable flaws in the previous "study", I would need to examine this paper first hand before I took any of its conclusions seriously. Metallic bonds are not weak. Mercury bonds are not "continuously broken". Broken bonds = mercury vapor.Mercury vapor can be very accurately measured.Determination of the rate of release of intra-oral mercury vapor from amalgam
Journal of Dental Research, Vol 67, 1235-1242, 1988 PLEASE NOTE: The folks with no amalgam fillings had measurable mercury vapor in their mouths. The mercury found in urine is from all exposures: air, food, water, fillings.Two tunafish sandwiches in one day = more mercury in your system than a month's exposure from a mouthful of amalgam fillings. http://www.ada.org/...urces/positions/statements/amalgam.asp 404 Error Page And that is not an exhaustive list of the organizations that find no causal link between amalgam fillings and death/injury.