Are mercury-amalgam fillings safe or not?

[ThatPoetGuy]

I'm trying to research the subject, and I've never seen such a divergence of opinion from respectable sources. Some say they're ticking time-bombs in your mouth, others say they're nothing to worry about.

The "Mercury Toxicity" Scam: How Anti-Amalgamists Swindle People

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/mercury.html

Apparently the FDA used to say the fillings were harmless, but changed its position after some more recent studies.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1030417/Mercury-fillings-ARE-dangerous-say-regulators--British-health-bosses-refuse-action.html

What's your perspective? Do you have any good resources for further reading?

[MADem]

1. I think not, and I only have personal experience as perspective.

I had some of them, and they were getting old and a bit loose/wonky, and I was getting sick. I had them replaced with the white ones, and my health improved. It was a quick improvement, too. It was like I had stopped being poisoned.

Evidence? No. But I think there was a marked, noticeable correlation.

I'll never get the mercury ones ever again.

[MH1]

2. Why get them?

Just get the newer natural colored stuff instead. It looks a lot better anyway.

[Orrex]

5. Except that a great many insurance programs won't cover the newer natural colored stuff

[MH1]

7. I didn't realize that, mine does, and I never thought of my co's health plans as stellar.

It surprises me to find we have anything better than average coverage. :)

[ThatPoetGuy]

I'm wondering whether to get rid of old ones,

not whether to put new ones in.

[MH1]

8. I trust my dentist pretty well and he recommends not disturbing them

If they aren't deteriorating they shouldn't be causing any problem. (Kind of like lead paint on walls, and asbestos, are fine until they become dust and you breathe it in, or your kid starts eating it)

At the first sign of deterioration in an old filling, get it replaced. It's going to give you other trouble anyway sooner or later.

[TheMadMonk]

11. If they are solid then probably not. Removal can end up doing...

...what you are trying to avoid.

Get your mercury levels checked. If they're good, don't screw with what's not broken.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

22. Something you may want to check out....

http://www.hugginsappliedhealing.com/

[laconicsax]

3. Here's my perspective...

The Daily Mail is a rag. It barely qualifies as a newspaper and certainly doesn't qualify as a reliable source.

Just FYI.

[Orrex]

4. They cause frenzied exaggeration and a sharp decrease in critical thinking skills

[Poll_Blind]

6. Really good starting point is the Wiki page for "Dental amalgam controversy"

I thought the Maths Berlin and Environmental Impact sections were pretty interesting.

PB

[WhiteTara]

9. No. Mercury in the body is not safe at any level

especially leaching out over the years.

[TheMadMonk]

12. Let me guess which side of the vaccination debate you're on.

Some mercury compounds are indeed highly toxic. Others the body never sees, even as they prevent bacterial growth.

Mecurochrome (the red stingy stuff, if you're old enough to remember it) was applied to billions of cuts and grazes for decades without killing a single child, despite the many lamentations and protestations which suggested otherwise.

[WhiteTara]

15. You must be for mercury in the body. Yum yum! n/t

[trotsky]

17. If you breathe air or eat food, you have mercury in your body.

Humans always have, even before fillings and vaccines and coal burning.

[WhiteTara]

18. yum. n/t

[TheMadMonk]

19. No. I am simply not a twit ignorant of the simple fact that some mercury...

...compounds are flat out not subject to being metabolised by the humam body.

[OnTheOtherHand]

26. dental amalgam uses liquid mercury, no?

The exposure levels typically are pretty low, but in principle, I think we're talking about exposure to elemental mercury.

[dflprincess]

10. One of the problems with amalgam fillings

is that the amalgam expands & contracts and eventually damages the tooth. Being a Baby Boomer, I belong to the generation when the standard treatment for a cavity was putting huge amalgam fillings in molars. This is why my molars are now all covered by crowns (it's why most my friends are in the same situation or well on their way to it).

Depending on how large your fillings are, you may want to ask your dentist about replacing them just because a new filling is a lot cheaper than a crown.

[SheilaT]

13. I'm inclined to think

(on the basis of no research of any kind) that some people may very well be sensitive to them. Others not so sensitive.

Think about the whole peanut allergy thing. There are those who really do become deathly ill from peanuts. Most of us, no. Actually all allergies are like that. If you're allergic, it's unpleasant at best. Those who aren't allergic, don't understand what the fuss is about.

[sfpcjock]

14. Avoid.

They leak Hg for a long time or forever. Their main advantage is being cheap. Better dentists don't do them these days unless you need the price advantage. If one gets covered up by a cap or a bridge structure, I heard that it is cut off and leaks even more Hg. Bill Maher had his drilled out and replaced, but he can obviously afford it.

[bemildred]

16. I have had many in my head all of my life with no apparent effect.

I remember when I was eleven or so getting 14 fillings at one time. Now most of my teeth have crowns. Of course that's anecdotal, and some people could be much more sensitive to the issue than others.

Theoretically, it would depend on dosage, and that would depend on how much leaches out and gets swallowed, and I don't know what the studies say about that.

[Kennah]

20. Main thing I have experienced with them ...

... is that over time, THEY SUCK!

They expand and contract cracking teeth and causing cavities beneath the filling. Wife and I both had to get a couple of them taken out over the years because they'd caused cavities. One of mine was so large and caused so much trouble dentist almost had to do a root canal.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

21. I filed mine down until I could get good elevator music in my head. n/t

[golfguru]

23. I have mercury fillings from 50 years back!

and am still healthy enough to walk 18 holes of any golf course.
(some are 7200 yards = 6 miles of walking)

[Manifestor_of_Light]

24. Extremely poisonous. We should not be having a discussion about them.

The EPA says Hg is the "most toxic non-radioactive substance" known.

That means "Well it's better than plutonium".

they started using Hg fillings in the 1840s and by the 1860s they were documenting health problems. Do we do anything in medicine the same way we did in 1860? No we don't. Except for Hg fillings.

There should be no argument about it. Hg vaporizes and grinds down mechanically and is absorbed by the body. I go to a dentist who removes Hg fillings and cleans out anaerobic bacteria in cavitations (holes where you had your wisdom teeth) and root canals. Anaerobic bacteria lurk for decades in root canals and cavitations. They are bad stuff: Tetanus and gangrene and botulism.

I had my root canals pulled, had my wisdom teeth holes cleaned out, and anaerobic bacteria were in there doing damage. I had my wisdom teeth pulled in 1973, and the germs had been in there since then. That was over 30 yrs of damage. I also had my Hg fillings removed and replaced with Cerex.

[OnTheOtherHand]

25. you mean, you should be telling us how it is?

Can you source your quotation? I found a somewhat similar statement -- that mercury was the most toxic non-radioactive heavy metal -- in a PowerPoint presentation posted on the EPA website (I don't think the author is affiliated with EPA). Implausible quotations vaguely attributed to institutional authorities don't really help the cause.

It's true that silver amalgam fillings create measurable mercury exposure levels. Whether those levels are dangerous is not clear, notwithstanding the 150 years of experience that you point to. As far as I can tell, in most cases they are well below the levels generally considered tolerable. I wouldn't pound the table that the risk from amalgams is zero; then again, I don't know of compelling evidence that alternative filling materials are safe, either. I don't see the evidence to justify advising people to have all their amalgam fillings removed and replaced.

Now, you say you "go to a dentist who removes Hg fillings and cleans out anaerobic bacteria." I suppose it's not surprising that the dentist who does this tells you how bad those fillings were, and how much damage the anaerobic bacteria were doing. And I'm willing to assume that the dentist believes it. But, again, I would want to see some solid evidence before advising anyone to undergo these procedures.

[trotsky]

29. This:

"I don't see the evidence to justify advising people to have all their amalgam fillings removed and replaced."

That is exactly what it comes down to. We seem to forget that humans have been around mercury their entire existence - and our bodies even have ways to excrete it, in small amounts. So the question becomes, how much are fillings giving us? The numbers I've heard suggest that you get more mercury from eating 3 tuna sandwiches than you will from a filling over an entire year.

So much is fearmongering by unscrupulous dentists looking to make an easy buck from those they scare.

[OnTheOtherHand]

31. OMG, you eat _tuna_??!? ;)

Yeah. Of course, exposure to mercury vapor may not be directly comparable to dietary consumption, regardless of how much ends up in the bloodstream. But I think if amalgam fillings were a major scourge, we would know. We know about leaded gasoline, and I don't think the dental-industrial complex is more influential than Big Oil.

I read (but can't confirm) that one of the originators of the amalgam scare was stripped of his license in part because he appeared to tell all his patients that they were suffering from mercury poisoning from their fillings -- including some who didn't even have amalgam fillings.

On the other hand, my own dentist has long refused to use amalgam fillings, and that seems like a reasonable position to me. I haven't racked my brains over whether composites are definitely safer than amalgam.

[trotsky]

32. Absolutely correct. Exposure to elemental mercury vapor is different.

It isn't nearly as readily absorbed as the methyl mercury found in tuna! But for the sake of argument, even if we assume they are equivalent, just living a regular life exposes one to far more mercury than what fillings can do.

[Tumbulu]

27. How difficult was it to clean

these holes? Dose one need to have this done regularly? What replaces the root canal tooth?

Thanks for posting.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

28. Not very difficult.

They only need to be cleaned out once.
The root canals were replaced with a two tooth removable bridge that hooks over the tooth in front and tooth in back.

These people have videos of mercury fillings offgassing, which is a neurotoxin, and more information:
http://www.iaomt.org/index.asp

http://mercuryfreedentistga.com/mercury-toxicity

http://users.penn.com/~rarearts/mercurypoisoning.htm


If Hg was not poisonous, why do they have special hazmat handling protocols when they put it in your mouth, and when they take it out??? And then why do they claim that once it's in your mouth it is safe and inert??? That is not logical.

Nobody should be using Hg in fillings.

[Warpy]

30. They've been safely used for 100 years

and provide stable and durable surfaces for chewing and can last a lifetime. The main down side is that they're ugly.

I have no amalgam in my mouth and I can report that my autoimmune diseases are just as bad now as they were when I had a mouthful of them.

Our bodies are designed to handle environmental toxins in small amounts. The amount of mercury that gets into the bloodstream from dental amalgam is extremely tiny, small enough to be safely sequestered by the liver.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

33. Amalgam is NOT safe and durable.

They crack, they wear down,they destroy teeth when they fall apart. I have had several fillings that cracked, fell apart, cracked the tooth, necessitating the removal of the tooth with a bridge, since root canals have germs in them due to the gutta percha.

Amalgam fillings just cause a cascade of tooth breakage.

I prefer my Cerex, thank you. Cerex cannot be as toxic as mercury.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

34. Lawsuit against the ADA and Cal Dental Association

http://www.toxicteeth.org/pressRoom_releases_061201.aspx


Lawsuits against American Dental Association and California Dental Association

Los Angeles, California, 06/12/01 -- The American Dental Association and its California affiliate were sued today in California Superior Court for their unlawful practice of deceiving patients about the presence of mercury in the most widely used type of dental fillings. The case charges the ADA and its largest state affiliate with deceiving consumers into thinking amalgam fillings are made of silver, when in fact the major component (about 50%) is mercury (see attached ADA brochure, "Answers to your questions about Silver Fillings"). Only about 25% of a mercury amalgam filling is composed of silver.

The lawsuits were filed this morning by public interest attorneys Shawn Khorrami of Los Angeles and Charles G. Brown of Washington, D.C. on behalf of organizations and individuals active in the effort to end the use of mercury in dental amalgam fillings (see list below).

In addition to filing the lawsuits, the attorneys served 60 days notice (as required by law), that they intend to sue the ADA under the provisions of Proposition 65, the anti-toxics measure passed by California voters in 1986. Under Prop. 65, the State of California has identified mercury as a chemical known to be a reproductive and/or developmental toxin.

"It is long past time for the ADA and the CDA to "open wide" and start using the "M" word," said Brown, the former West Virginia state Attorney General who is the lead attorney for the national legal battle against mercury in dental fillings. "Mercury is universally recognized as an extremely dangerous toxin. One filling contains 750 milligrams of mercury, enough to contaminate a small lake. The ADA is out of the medical mainstream in claiming that mercury is safe for use in human beings. The rest of the medical world is eliminating the use of mercury in all other circumstances . People have the right to know the truth from the dental establishment about the dangers of mercury."

"The ADA and CDA are out of step not only with the rest of the medical community, but with California law," said Khorrami. "The State of California identifies mercury as a toxic substance, and under Prop. 65, therefore, dentists are required to warn their patients about it. Our complaint is not with individual dentists, many of whom share our concern about the use of mercury, but with the ADA, which has a vested economic interest in the continued use of mercury and which has exercised undue and unfair pressure on dentists not to warn their patients of the dangers of mercury."

"The amount of mercury in each dental filling is colossal by medical standards," said Dr. Boyd E. Haley, Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Kentucky and an expert in the study of the dangers of mercury to human health, who joined the attorneys at the press conference. "Mercury amalgam is dangerous before it goes into the mouth, and it is a hazardous material when it comes out. Each filling has 750,000 micrograms of mercury. A person with four fillings has three grams of mercury in his or her mouth, enough to shut down a lake, a school, or a business."

[OnTheOtherHand]

35. OK, so, how did that 2001 lawsuit turn out?

I'm scratching my head trying to figure out why you think that would be a persuasive thing to post.

Yes, without question there is a lot of mercury in amalgam fillings.