What it the maximum daily intake allowed by the EPA?

10 µg/24 hour for sources other than air. (EPA United States Environmental Protection Agency Office of Health and

Environment Assessment, Mercury health effects update Final Report, EPA-600/8-84-019F, 1971, EPA)

" John [another poster] has his facts wrong when he states that composite resin restorations will be much

stronger. "

Dr. Harold Löe director of the U.S. National Institute for Dental Research in 'Research in Progress Voices from NIDR' published in Dentistry Today 9/1993 stated the following, "The first filling is a critical step in the life of a tooth. Using amalgam for the first filling requires removing a lot of the tooth substance, not only diseased tooth substance but healthy tooth substance as well. So in making the undercut you sacrifice a lot, and this results in a weakened tooth. The next thing you know the tooth breaks off, and you need a crown. Then you need to repair the crown . . . and so it continues to the stage where there is no more to repair and you pull the tooth. With the first filling you should do something that can either restore the tooth or retain more health tooth substance. Use new materials-composites or materials you can bond to the surface without undercuts. You can do this with little removal of the tooth substance so that the core of the tooth is still there."

This statement is the most severe criticism our profession hasendured in over a century. The director of the largest dental research institute in the world told you and I to stop placing amalgam in children not because it is poisoning them or because it reduced their IQ but because it is the wrong thing to do. . .clinically, technically, and dentally speaking. I read that 80% of the new carious lesions in children are treated with amalgam.

Today the biggest user and purchaser of dental amalgam is the US government for the military and under welfare insurance programs. Every dental school in the U.S. teaches students how to place amalgam yet, in two countries so far the departments of Health have told dentists not to place amalgam in children or in women that are pregnant. Sweden has enacted a ban on placement of amalgam which is in its final year. The ADA news called this ban a bogus ban. What is a bogus ban?

" These materials are also extremely technique sensitive and many restorations fail by caries forming underneath due to leakage of the margins. "

The Longevity of Composites

The longevity of amalgam and composites was addressed in the US PHS document. They were slightly different but the composites tested were placed in amalgam preparations. Had they compared the composite as a primary restoration and amalgam as a primary restoration they would have found out what Dr. Löe was so adamant about.

Technique sensitive: The problem here is that dentistry does not value its own service. They condone the sloppy use of a toxic material because smart monkeys can place amalgam and it takes a modicum of intelligence to first dry and clean the tooth before bonding an adhesive restoration. This is a call for smarter more capable dentists not a reason to use an antiquated toxic, mercury leaking, tooth breaking filling material. Studies have shown that some dentists can place extremely long lived composites while others leak badly. Perhaps the problem lies in the schools and what they are teaching. I encountered two new graduates a couple of years ago who had never placed a posterior composite in their training. They were upset with their training because none of the other "Cosmetic" dentists in their area were using ugly black posterior amalgam.

Last week I lectured on indirect posterior composites in Montreal, Canada. A young student was unaware that dycal (bases of any kind) are not desirable under resin restorations. They weaken the restoration, do not bond, and provide no protection to the pulp. With dentists graduating untrained in the use of the current materials it is not surprising that failures abound.

"These materials are not yet the functional equivalent of dental amalgam and are not likely to provide the length of service expected of a dental amalgam when used in posterior teeth on functioning surfaces. "

Tooth structure will however, provide the support for occlusion. If the dentists would quit drilling away so much good tooth to place an antiquated filling material there would be fewer restorative problems. Posterior composites placed with an indirect technique can withstand the forces of occlusion in many places. In other places a cast gold or porcelain restoration is required. The forces of occlusion vary greatly from person to person, male to female, and upon personal chewing habits. Individual evaluation is required. The exact same forces that make excessive wear on composite squeeze mercury to the surface of ever amalgam (young or old) and abraid away particles to be swallowed and dissolved in the saliva.

Rely upon the peer reviewed documented medical literature and minimize your exposure to all toxic substances. If history is a good teacher, then most of the cheap restorative materials in daily use in this country will eventually be banned. Because resistance to change is so great with this profession the changes will be extremely slow until we loose the first lawsuit that does not have a gag order.(Many lawsuits have already been settles out of court).

Remember, asbestos was used as a bandage for cut bleeding gums until John Mansville lost their claim that direct causation could not be proven. After that Coe Pack (one of the popular brands of perio dressing) proudly announced, Now contains no asbestos. How many patients knew that they had asbestos mixed with zinc oxide and eugenol packed in their oral cavities? For that matter how many dentists knew that they were packing asbestos. As my old professor Claude Baker proclaimed in 1967 when I questioned this practice, "Once it is covered with spit it is harmless." If the hazardous waste companies had only known how good a detoxifier spit is they could have saved a fortune.

Dentistry still today claims that spit protects patients from mercury vapor released from dental amalgam. Studies show that the average person makes and swallows 1.5 liters of saliva a day. Yet, if they have as few as 4 amalgams present in their mouth, the average person's saliva is so high in mercury they cannot legally spit into the toilet. Their saliva exceeds the EPA maximum legal municipal discharge standard for mercury. It was interesting to note that the form of the mercury was in was organic.

Above from: dkennedy@UCSD.edu (Dr D. Kennedy)

Also make sure to read these books: Poison in Your Teeth: Mercury Amalgam (Silver) Fillings...Hazardous to Your Health! and Mercury Detoxification by Tom McGuire