The position of the American Dental Association is that the amount of mercury vapor coming from silver fillings is so small that it can not be scientifically proved that harm comes from the fillings. They are correct. Silver amalgam fillings account for only about one third of our direct mercury exposure. The other metals of industry poison us in additive ways. Scientific, double-blind studies are designed to look at such a small part of the puzzle, that whoever is paying for the study generally gets the desired results. If, by accident, the results are negative, the study is quashed. Science is a tool of corporate industry. Corporations are non-human life forms, interested in their own preservation.

The removal of silver fillings and other metals from the mouth is a highly controversial and emotional issue. I have placed these poisonous materials into the pristine mouths of children. My awareness of the risks associated with the everyday tools of my profession arose gradually. Grounded as I am in physiology and biochemistry, my readings outside the politically controlled dental literature brought me to the conclusion that the environment is heavily polluted, and that we all are feeling the effects. The lead problem is better documented. A whole series of articles have run in the New England Journal of Medicine. The slightest detectable levels of lead already reduce intelligence quotient in our offspring. Mercury blocks similar pathways to lead and cadmium! It can be argued that mercury is more toxic than lead. My profession has supported the use of these silver fillings for more than one hundred years. In fact, the primary reason the American Dental Association was created was to promote the use of silver fillings. It was difficult to depart from the teachings of my trusted professors and the science of the main body of my profession. Guilt and denial made it even more difficult to acknowledge, and to accept the potential harm I have caused to my patients and the environment.

Then comes the question of alternatives or replacements. Mostly today, dentists are using composite resins highly filled with quartz, ceramics, or zircon. Some have aluminum. Many have fluoride added. Plastics are estrogenic. The harmful results of excess estrogens likely contribute to our epidemics of acne, fibrocystic breasts, endometriosis, other cysts, breast or prostate cancer and even male pattern baldness. The harmful effects of oxidized estrogens or testosterone may be mitigated by supplementing with fatty extracts of the saw palmetto berry (serenoa repens). But then, composites are just one more plastic, with a few extra things added. Extrapolations done with inadequate data suggest that these composite fillings carry ten to one hundred times less risk than the heavy metals. Clinically useful blood tests have been developed using the response of subsets of immune cells to the contents of various dental materials. Dentists who are members of the Holistic Dental Association or The International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology can prescribe this test.

Fluoride probably does not present much of a clinical problem to psychologists, but the fluoride in the tooth paste is the most common cause of morning nausea. Motor dysfunction, IQ deficits, and learning disabilities in humans have been linked to fluoride. (Neurotoxicology and Teratology, Vol. 17, No. 2, 1995.) Breeders of purebred bulls know that the administration of fluorides makes the bull more submissive and easier to handle. During World War II, both the Germans and the Russians added sodium fluoride to prisoner’s drinking water to subtly poison the mind and reduce the power to resist domination. Dental & Health Facts, Vol. 10, Issue 1, January, 1997, Foundation for Toxic Free Dentistry, P.O. Box 60810, Orlando, FL 32860-8010.

Even more perplexing is a 1997 article from Acta Odontol Scand 55:58-63, by IA Mjor, The reasons for replacement and the age of failed restorations in general dental practice. Half the fluoride containing and releasing glass ionomers failed at three years due to recurrent decay. The frequency of secondary caries as a cause for replacement of glass ionomer restorations was surprising because fluoride is supposed to prevent decay.