Cent4dent Blog

My enlightenment came almost 20 years ago after discovering how the mercury vapor given off by the scrap amalgam in the glass jar in my office had eaten through the metal lid. I began to learn more about the lies about the inert nature of mercury in dental fillings. After reading the headline story of the August 20th ADA News “Amalgam Economics”, I felt that the naivety of ADA members needed to be addressed.

I cannot deny the durability and ease of placement of dental amalgam. I cannot deny the technique sensitivity of composite placement, or the difficulty of presentation of gold onlays or full-coverage restorations to patients who have an unwillingness to pay out of pocket or an entitlement mentality regarding insurance coverage.

I cannot fathom, however, the lemmings in my profession; the so-called scientists who have failed to make the connection that mercury, the most toxic naturally-occurring substance on this planet, is being placed in the heads of human beings. The American Dental Association should be thrilled that the FDA is primed to ban the use of dental mercury to some extent. Dentists should be excited that the 1850’s technology that has been the basis for the salvation of human dentitions has been supplanted by 21st Century technology.

Instead, we get an article about how much more it’s going to cost the American public to fill their cavities with less toxic materials. And in that article there is again the ADA diatribe that there is no significant evidence of harm. As an attendee at the FDA mercury filling hearings in September of 2006, I can attest to the fact that the overwhelming evidence presented against mercury was scientific, and that the pro-mercury (ADA) side presented evidence that the principal reason for the continuation of the use of mercury fillings was cost-containment.

How then did it come to pass that the panel of 20 FDA scientists present voted by an almost 2:1 margin, not to support their own FDA white paper advocating the lack of scientific evidence? How then did the panel then interrogate the author of said white paper as to how he managed to ignore so much scientific evidence? The defining moment was when after several pointed questions, he stated, “I was only following orders.”

I encourage all dentists to open their minds (if the mercury hasn’t caused significant axon degeneration) and read the literature. Go to my website, or the website of the IAOMT (www.iaomt.org) and learn about the science of mercury. Read the research of Murray Vimy, and Boyd Hailey, and others who have long-recognized just as the MD’s who used to specialize on dentistry in the 1800’s: Mercury does not belong in human heads.
Twenty years ago, and obedient ADA servant, I too would have shunned this information. Then my eyes were opened by the ADA’s response to the Vimy study: “That research was done on sheep, not humans.”

Vimy repeated the study with the same results on primates. Before those results were published, my practice had stopped placing mercury in patients’ heads. Dr. Vimy, you see, is a wet-fingered dentist in Calgary, like you and I. His research study, which involved the use of a traceable radioisotope of mercury in fillings, was able to study the dispersion of that isotope to various organ systems of the sheep, and across the placenta to the fetuses. It was his intention with the design of this study to prove that mercury was safe, and that people like Huggins were charlatans. Imagine his surprise when he found that the “mercury-in-fillings-is-safe-diatribe” was fallacy. Imagine his shock when this well-conceived study, done under the auspices of the medical school at Calgary, was summarily dismissed by the ADA as ill-conceived?

One of the things I teach my students is that theirr dental education starts when they get their license to practice. Think back to your days in dental school. How many lectures did you receive about mercury? My first was 31 years after graduation at an IAOMT meeting. What did you learn about fluoride? More on fluoride later. The half-life of medical information is five years. How is it that we are still using a toxic material, that was shunned by half the profession over 150 years ago? How is it that state departments of environmental protection are mandating mercury separators on dental offices? Could it be that the mercury you are using doctor, is not inert once amalgamated?

I encourage you to learn about how mercury, once across the blood-brain barrier causes axon degeneration. I encourage you to learn about how some individuals with the APO-E 2 gene are better protected than those with APO E 4. The concern over a small percentage of the population that is “allergic” to mercury is subterfuge. This is a toxic reaction that some patients are more genetically predisposed to than others. Symptoms of mercury toxicity include:

• Tremors in fine voluntary muscles
• Depression, fatigue, increased irritability, moodiness, nervous excitability – especially when criticized
• Inability to concentrate, loss of memory
• Insomnia or drowsiness
• Birth defects in offspring
• Infertility – to name a few

Corporate diatribe to promote mercury filling safety has included the nun study, and the New England children’s studies. Investigate further and learn how poorly constructed these studies that the ADA used as scientific proof of mercury filling safety were.

On the same page, of the same issue of the ADA News was an article refuting anti-fluoridation information in the media. Again, let me ask you to open that space between your ears. What do you remember about the action of fluoride? It changes hydroxyapatite into fluorhydroxyapatite which is less soluble in acid, right? How does fluoride given systemically end up hardening teeth? Some of it ends up in the saliva, and bathes the enamel. Where does the rest of it go?

If you wanted to prevent the sun from causing skin cancer, would you put SPF 50 in the water supply? No, of course not. You would apply it topically. So while that space between your ears is still receiving doctor, do a web-search for “fluoride & osteosarcoma.” Forget the ADA’s defense of fluorosis. I’d much rather treat a child with fluorosis than one with osteosarcoma. But I’d rather this child not be my grandchild at all.

I realize that the dissemination of this message is unlikely to get through to dentists through ADA dental publications. I therefore ask that if your eyes have been opened at all by any of the information I’ve provided here, that you forward it on to other colleagues of yours who perhaps have been practicing with blinders on since their graduation.

Stephen Markus, DMD FACE – ADA member since 1975
The Center for Dentistry at Haddon
209 White Horse Pike
Haddon Heights, NJ 08035
Smarkus147545@comcast.net