Claim

Contrary Evidence

Mercury is not poisonous when used in dental amalgam as it is combined with other metals such as silver, tin and copper. It reacts with them to form a biologically inactive substance

Mercury is not neutralised by the other products. Because mercury is diluted by the other substances the vapour pressure is reduced, however mercury vapour is still released.

When you eat or chew vigorously very small quantities of mercury vapour are absorbed by the body, but no evidence exists that associate this minute amount of mercury vapour with any toxic effect.

Although there is no threshold level of mercury exposure that can be considered totally harmless, the US Environmental Protection Agency’s has defined a maximum allowable concentration for air quality. Measurements have shown that intra-oral levels of mercury vapour are between thirty and 100 hundred times higher than that level. Tests on pregnant sheep have shown that mercury has passed into both the sheep and foetal tissues – including organs, glands and brain. After 33 days, most foetal tissues had higher levels of mercury than the maternal tissues.

A major source of mercury exposure is from fish in the diet.

It has been scientifically concluded that mercury/silver fillings constitute the largest source of inorganic mercury exposure to the general population and this exposure exceeds organic mercury exposure from fish.

The profession has been using amalgam for more than 150 years. Some of the newer materials used have only been around for a decade or less, so we don’t have a long-standing history of safety with then that we have with amalgam.

This statement by the American Dental Association gives the distinct impression that dental amalgam has the ADA "seal of approval." In fact the ADA has maintained that mixed dental amalgam is a reaction product manufactured by the individual dentist and therefore cannot be certified and it is the responsibility of the individual dentist to determine the efficacy of the materials and their appropriateness for each patient.

ADA states that the strongest and most convincing support we have for the safety of dental amalgam is the fact that each year more than 100 million amalgam fillings are placed in the United States.

This is approximately 72 tons of mercury per year. Historically, numerous products such as asbestos, lead and DDT were thought to be safe and scientific concerns were discounted by the industry responsible. Each of these products demonstrated pathology after a latency period of chronic low dose exposure as does mercury. Moreover, the pathology from mercury is of a medical nature and would not be apparent to most dentists. Most Physicians would not be aware of the possibility that mercury from fillings might have induced the pathology.

Since 1984 the ADA has claimed that the incidence of hypersensitivity to mercury is less that 1%

Scientific literature has reported skin allergy to mercury occurs in approximately 5% of the general population. Between 2% and 35% of people with amalgam fillings test hypersensitive to mercury. The incidence of this adverse reaction gradually increases with time and the onset may be delayed five or more years.