A preference for amalgam

Typically, adults carry about 10 silver fillings in their mouths. Overall, each year more than 200 million are placed in mouths, according to the ADA. Considering that each amalgam weighs about 1 gram and that half of that is mercury, more than 110 tons of mercury are being used in silver fillings each year.

The U.S. welfare system and most insurance companies don't cover anything but amalgam for fillings. Gold or composite fillings, both alternatives to amalgam, are more expensive and are still considered elective by the government and by most insurance companies.

"The suggestion that the dental profession has something to hide and that its position concerning dental amalgam is being driven by some self-serving purpose is entirely unfounded. Indeed, the widespread replacement of dental amalgam would be a great economic benefit to the dental profession," reads a Colorado Dental Association statement, referring to the extra business generated by replacing amalgam fillings.

The "benefit to the dental profession" might of course only go to those dentists not driven out of business by massive class-action lawsuits. If it were decided that amalgam is harmful, every dentist who used it without getting proper informed consent and every company that produced it could be embroiled in lawsuits a thousand times more severe than the ones that exploded in the breast-implant industry.

Besides purely financial reasons, dentists have more cause to fear and loathe a move away from mercury. Amalgam is not only the cheapest, but also the easiest filling to install. In order to remove amalgam and replace it with composite or some other filling, many dentists would have to take classes and spend more time on every filling.

Allergic reaction

People on both sides of the issue agree that mercury can be harmful to a minority of people who are allergic. While the anti-mercury component notes that minority could consist of millions, the ADA contends there have only been 100 documented cases. According to Denver dentist Scott McAdoo, the ADA used to claim that 5 percent of all patients were allergic to amalgam until the CDC pointed out that by definition, that's an epidemic. The ADA then changed the figure to 1 percent. But that figure still meant that a few million were affected, so the ADA started claiming that one in a million were allergic. According to anti-mercury activists, who quote various studies, allergic reactions can lead to everything from multiple sclerosis to Lou Gehrig's disease to cerebral palsy. The ADA and the National MS society dismiss claims that mercury poisoning can lead to MS because of the lack of hard scientific data. They want to protect MS victims desperate for a cure from forking over thousands of dollars for amalgam removal when it's not proven. They also want to discourage dentists who don't have adequate medical knowledge from spreading unproved medical claims.

The danger that people suffering from a variety of strange symptoms would seek amalgam removal is certainly real, considering the hundreds of tales of miraculous cures circulating in the anti-amalgam community. And few would dispute the notion that, with a tremendous potential for profit from amalgam removal, charlatans would surface.

A CBS 60 Minutes special that ran on Dec. 16, 1990 discussed many of the dangers of mercury and included stories of fantastic cures. On Dec. 17, calls flooded into the ADA, dental schools and dentists' offices everywhere from frightened and angry patients. "I think that the ADA made the decision then that the anti-amalgam movement was getting out of hand and it was time to decapitate some of the more prominent leaders," says Kip Sullivan, a Harvard Law School graduate who became an integral member of the anti-mercury movement after he had 14 fillings removed and subsequently recovered from colitis.

Witch hunt

Hal Huggins was one of the leaders Sullivan feels was targeted in order to shut down the anti-mercury movement. Mary Logan, general counsel for the ADA, filed her complaint against Huggins in the first week of May 1991, beginning the process that would end exactly five years later with the revocation of Huggins' license. Chris Martin, spokesman for the ADA, said the action was precipitated by a patient's complaint and denied there had been any concerted crackdown on renegade dentists. Huggins has no desire to appeal what he saw as a totally corrupt trial in the first place. "They are accuser, judge, appellate court, and executioner," he says of the board and the attorney general's office which made the case against him.

Currently, McAdoo who worked with Huggins until 1994, is facing a similar suit to revoke his license. The charges in McAdoo's eyes boil down to "guilt by association." Even though McAdoo used informed consent forms that promised no cures, and though he made no medical claims, he is still being targeted for operating outside the realm of legitimate dentistry. The state attorney general's office refused to comment, saying the case was underinvestigation.

"It's like standing up in a foxhole if you advertise that you're mercury free," says McAdoo. Michael Ziff, another prominent mercury-free dentist who co-authored a book on the subject, has been under investigation by Florida's Board of Dental Examiners for 2 1/2 years without charges being raised, he claims. One month after an article he wrote criticizing amalgam fillings appeared in the Orlando Sentinel, a complaint was filed with the Florida board by a fellow dentist. Since then, Ziff says, he has "supplied all the documentation to support every sentence in the article" and had five medical researchers back up his claims. Ziff says that it took well over a year for the Florida board to come up with a "quote, expert, unquote."

Sullivan has collected information on approximately 30 other mercury-free dentists around the country who have been or currently are in danger of losing their licenses. From the way Sullivan interprets the complaints, most lack substance and are often merely fronts for taking down vocal mercury opponents. Furthermore, attorney general's offices and state boards are resurrecting claims that had been thrown out years before and they are using patient information against dentists despite the spoken and written non-compliance of those patients, according to Sullivan.

"The number of witch hunts slowly increased through the '90s but '96 is just bonkers," says Sullivan. "To make matters worse it appears the witch hunters are going after physicians who are recommending to their patients that they get their fillings removed as well."

Rosemary McCool Garceo, program administrator for various state boards in Colorado including the dental examiners, denies there is anything like a witch hunt in progress. "We don't target dentists," she says. "We just respond to complaints initiated by patients, insurance companies and dentists." Of the close to 300 complaints that have been investigated in Colorado in the last two years, only six licenses have been revoked, and the only prominent mercury-free dentist in that group of six was Hal Huggins. Ziff points out that as long as mercury-free dentists follow the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology's guidelines of not making medical claims and not promising cures they should be able to keep their licenses and stay in business. Ziff says that patients aren't as stupid as the ADA might think. With the scientifically established facts that mercury is one of the deadliest neurotoxic metals known to man, that each filling is about half mercury and that mercury vapor does escape fillings, patients won't want mercury in their mouths, he says.

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