Hi Steve,
Erich asks a great question and I’ve just recently re-looked at the smoking teeth video because I used a segment of it in the Seminars Paul Rubin and I recently put on How to Make Your Practice Mercury Safe: Minimizing Occupational Exposure to Mercury at the Dental Office. I’m pretty sure I mentioned them to you and we are getting ready to offer the DVD format of the seminar.
Anyway, I thought that overall it provided some good and accurate information but there were a few places where I either didn’t agree with what David Kennedy said or couldn’t confirm the numbers. I’ll explain.
In the first part of the video, where he is stimulating the 25 year old amalgam filling in various ways he makes a statement that if you can see mercury vapor coming off of an amalgam filling (of course using a backdrop that will show it as he does) then it is at least 1,000 times higher than the EPA allows in the air we breathe. The EPA deals with emissions, such as mercury from coal burning power plants and I’ve still not been able to find the so-called allowable number in the way it is normally regulated by OSHA and the other regulatory agencies in the workplace (which I consider the most important for the majority of people), such as in mcg/Hg/m3. Here is a bit of information about what the EPA has announced. The nation’s 450 coal-fired power plants are the main culprits. They emit some 48 tons of mercury into the atmosphere each year. The new regulations aim to cut those emissions to 38 tons in five years, and to 15 tons by 2018.
I’ve not seen anything from the EPA regarding office/workplace air. But the agencies that do regulate this air, or make suggestions, all vary in the amount that they consider safe. These figures range from 3mcg’s per hour over a 24 hour period to 50 mcg’s as a time weighted average based on a 8 hour day or 40 hour week. WHO is in the middle at 25mcg’s.
David also used an eraser to heat the filling, an odd choice in my opinion when it would have been just as easy to use a toothbrush (a much more common way of stimulating an amalgam filling. But I’ve used a Jerome Mercury Vapor Analyzer for many years and I’d say that during a 4 year period I tested hundreds of amalgam fillings using a soft bristle tooth brush and the numbers I got ranged from 150mcg’s to over 400mcg’s, depending on how hard I brushed and probably the type of amalgam, high copper or not.
During our Seminar I also used an eraser and the Jerome recorded about 250mcg’s, I can’t remember exactly.
But clearly, none of these numbers come close to being 1,000 times higher than the EPA (which I still don’t believe uses mcg’s) or any of the other regulatory agencies figures for mercury levels. However, drilling out an amalgam unsafely can generater 1,000mcg’s, or more, as I”ve tested that using a Jerome during removal and it went off the highest level the Jerome can record, 999mcg’s. (By the way, I believe that David also said unsafe removal can generate 4,000mcg’s of mercury vapor, but I was unable to substantiate that number, even though it could well be accurate. I say this because the Jerome I used only went up to 999mcg’s.)
It should also be pointed out that these numbers, 3, 25, 50, all give an appearance of being small numbers and who could be concerned about 3, or 25? But the fact is that 1 mcg of mercury contains 3 trillion atoms of it. Regardless, the key point here is that no matter what levels these agencies deem as being safe, there is no safe level of mercury and even one atom of it is doing harm to the body, albeit will take many, many trillions of it to chronically accumulate over time to cause an observable symptom of it to appear. This alone is a huge subject and I cover it in detail in my book, The Poison in Your Teeth: Mercury Amalgam (Silver) Fillings . . . Hazardous to Your Health.
I suggest that if Eric is as interested in the amalgam issue as he sounds that he will appreciate the book and I know it will answer many of his questions and add to his background knowledge.
That said I’ll briefly address Erich’s key questions.
As I mentioned, I’ve tested a number of amalgams, a number of which the patient believed to be over 25 years old and all still showed high levels of mercury being released, depending on a number of factors. I’m not sure just how scientific this is but I did observe it and that was proof enough for me. If Erich had a Jerome he would find the same results.
The video does say that a lot of mercury vapor is emitted during placement, and that is true. I’ve tested this and during actual placement, where elemental mercury is actually pooling on the filling as it is being compressed, will exceed the recorded limits of the Jerome, 999mcg/Hg/m3. The same would be true if you broke a thermometer (containing elemental mercury) and tested the mercury vapor levels at room temperature. It will also exceed the recording limits of the Jerome and I’ve done this test too.
Thus, it is true that mercury is released during placement, during stimulation while in the tooth (to various levels and depending on a number of factors) and while it is being unsafely removed. Relatively speaking and considering that no amount of mercury is safe, these are all high amounts of mercury. Again, I believe the book will also be of value to Erich if he provided it to patients who want to go into detail about the pro’s and con’s of amalgam and will save him and his staff a lot of time not having to deal with this at the office. You might have to treat them at the office but you don’t have to teach them there.
As Erich pointed out with his basic math section, there is 400mg of Hg in a 3 spill capsule. As I pointed out, that is LOT of mercury, 400,000mcg’s of it, times 3 trillion atoms. It has to be remembered that the mercury that is released during stimulation takes place on the surface but as the amalgam is worn down new surface areas are created exposing more mercury. I’ve never seen a study that shows or proves that the mercury being released during stimulation (the amount of elemental mercury vapor released in any situation is directly proportional to the temperature) comes from inside the filling. Thus, as we all know, even a 25 year old amalgam would still have a lot of mercury left in it, although I’ve not seen any studies that have attempted to determine that amount.
He is also right in figuring out that most of the mercury that was released during those 25 years in the tooth will have entered the body, 80% of it is the number that is used. How much of what has entered is still there is impossible to tell because the body can remove it, up to a point (this process is also described in my book).
I really think Erich is asking very good and legitimate questions, many of the ones I asked myself when I embarked on my research for writing my books. I wrote the book for the layperson but I feel it is even more important for the dentist and health professional. It took me a book to explain everything I felt people should know about it and there is no way I can deal with everything I feel Erich would want to know in this email. But hopefully it will help in some way to address the specific questions he had. I also don’t think there is anything simple when looking for answers to questions and wanted to know more about something and I only wish more dentists were as open minded as Erich is.
Thanks for sending this along Steve and I hope it makes some sense. In some ways it is information taken out of context from my book as some of this should be prefaced and followed up on. I do hope you are well and keep up the great work you do, for the public, the profession and your patients.
In Health,
Tom
Tom McGuire, DDS
President, The Dental Wellness Institute
Founder, International Association of Mercury Safe Dentists (IAMSD)
Co-Founder, New Directions Dentistry, LLC
Member, International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology (IAOMT)
Telephone Contact
Within the USA: 1-800-335-7755
Outside the USA: 707-829-7220
Email: dentwell@pacbell.net
Address
Dental Wellness Institute
321 S. Main St. #503
Sebastopol, CA 95472