"Silver" dental fillings: Part 1Are they dangerous?

Have you heard about Dr. Hal Huggins? He's the dentist who has been fighting the dental establishment for over 40 years to force them to acknowledge the dangers of "silver" dental fillings. In case you didn't already know it, silver fillings aren't really silver. They're an amalgam (mixture) of metals, including 50% mercury. Dr. Huggins refused to use mercury fillings for any of his patients, so he lost his dental license.

Good mercury vs. bad mercury
Medical and governmental agencies have warned us about the dangerous levels of mercury in fish, going so far as to discourage eating fish more than a couple times a week (and not at all for pregnant women or small children). How is it that mercury planted in your teeth doesn't pose any danger?

Medical and dental professional organizations claim that dental amalgams are stable and do not release mercury into the body. Dentists have known for a long time that pulling a tooth that has an amalgam or removing an amalgam from a tooth will reveal an unmistakable mercury "tattoo" on the gum. Some of the mercury has leached out of the filling and left a residue on the gum. Your mouth shares blood with the rest of your body, so the mercury that left a tattoo on your gum will travel to the rest of your body.

This sets up a case of good mercury vs. bad mercury. Just for the record, there is no such thing as good mercury. Mercury, in any state, is bad. Medical and dental professionals have known about the health hazards of mercury since the 1800s. At that time, the mercury-laden fillings were known in Germany as "quacksilber." That's why we refer to charlatans as quacks. In the U.S., quacksilber eventually morphed to quicksilver.

Knowledgeable dentists in the U.S., Germany, England and other countries fervently campaigned against the use of mercury fillings. To prevent all dentists from being put into the same category as mercury-using quacks, a professional association was formed. Only dentists who refused to use mercury amalgams were allowed to join. Today, we know that organization as the American Dental Association (ADA). However, they eventually changed their tune about mercury fillings and now endorse them. When Dr. Huggins refused to use mercury fillings, the ADA revoked his license to practice.

Can mercury fillings make you sick?
Doctors now recognize that autoimmune disorders, such as multiple sclerosis, autoimmune thyroiditis, atopic eczema and systemic lupus, may be caused or exacerbated by mercury fillings.

In an experiment conducted by The Institute of Dental Research at the General University Hospital in Prague, doctors found that 71% of patients with autoimmune disorders "showed improvement of health" after they replaced their mercury fillings with composites and ceramic materials. The highest rate of improvement was among multiple sclerosis sufferers. Interestingly, 11% of the test subjects got worse after amalgam replacement. For some people, aggressive replacement of amalgams over a short period of time releases so much mercury vapor (the vapor is released when the dentist drills out the old filling) that it overwhelms their body. The vapor enters the lungs, where the blood carries it to the rest of the body. The huge toxic overload is too great for the liver to process and remove, so it stays in the body and makes symptoms worse.

Removing mercury amalgams isn't the only way the vapor is released. According to the Department of Oral Health Practice at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, "researchers discovered that amalgam restorations release mercury vapor during chewing." If you have a lot of mercury fillings, you could be causing serious health problems whenever you chew. Even worse, you may be doing the same thing while you sleep if you grind your teeth at night.

Dentists who use mercury amalgams suffer the most
Dentists have the highest suicide rate of any group of people. Mercury causes neurological disorders when it's in a "free state" (not in your tooth), so dentists have to handle mercury amalgams very carefully. Before mercury is put in your tooth or after a filling is removed, dentists must follow rigid, precise handling procedures as dictated by the Environmental Protection Agency to avoid contaminating the environment with the very substance that was in your mouth just a second ago! The EPA and the ADA should recognize that the mouth is also an environment.

Tomorrow, I'll write about replacement fillings, how to get your fillings safely removed, how to help your body remove mercury from your organs and how to find a dentist that doesn't use mercury fillings.

Additional sources:
Int J Hyg Environ Health. 2006 Jul;209(4):309-16
J Long Term Eff Med Implants. 2005;15(6):709-21
Neuro Endocrinol Lett. 2004 Jun;25(3):211-8
Br Dent J. 1999 Sep 11;187(5):261-4

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I am not a doctor and have no medical training.
The information in this blog is not intended
to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
Statements made on this blog
have not been evaluated by the FDA.
Consult a healthcare professional before using any products,
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"Let food be thy medicine and
medicine be thy food" - Hippocrates