This week, Mercury-Free Dentistry Week, we celebrate amazing progress around the world, and we urge you to support the two keys to victory: Consumers for Dental Choice and mercury-free dentists.

Consumers for Dental Choice is dismantling one of history’s major mistakes: the implanting of mercury in human teeth. Resistance from the pro-mercury wing of dentistry, which has its tentacles deep inside government agencies and insurance companies, is rapidly eroding due to nonstop and strategic pressure from Charlie Brown and this small but effective organization.

Equally, we urge support for the mercury-free dentists of North America and the world. They are providing nontoxic dentistry; they merit your business. Not meriting your dollars are the dentists still using amalgam. Sure, try to change your dentist’s mind if she/he still uses amalgam. But if they are still implanting amalgam, it’s time to exercise your power as a consumer.

If consumers move en masse to mercury-free dentists as I recommend, the dentists still sticking with amalgam will follow, regardless of pleading by the pro-mercury American Dental Association. Please join me in donating to Consumers for Dental Choice, and I will match every dollar you give (up to a grand total of $150,000) during Mercury-Free Dentistry Week, August 25-31, 2019.

Just click the donate button above to contribute online or you may mail a check to Consumers for Dental Choice, 316 F St., N.E., Suite 210, Washington DC 20002.

Four more European countries announce amalgam phase out

Consumers for Dental Choice, working closely with their European allies, carried out an intense campaign that resulted in a new European Union regulation that banned the use of amalgam in children under 15 years old, pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers, starting July 1, 2018. That same regulation requires EU countries to submit national plans to phase down their overall use of amalgam. So Consumers for Dental Choice and team took action. They:

• Sent our team to meet with decision-makers in national capitals
• Brought a team to Strasbourg, seat of the European Parliament
• Sent guidance to European Union countries on how to construct an effective national plan
• Had meetings with key government officials in the European Parliament, at the European Commission and in the European Council
• Worked with other nonprofit groups in the same way we create coalitions on every continent, including North America

 

Good news: Four more European countries — Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland and Slovakia — announced their end date for amalgam use! These countries join Sweden and Norway to lead all of Europe to mercury-free dentistry.

Victories in developing countries too

The European Union campaign is far from an isolated success: Consumers for Dental Choice’s work in developing countries — via their international arm, the World Alliance for Mercury-Free Dentistry — sees similar victories and helps to share these success stories with other nations. Here is a partial list of those successes:

In Southeast Asia, Vietnam’s government directed its provinces this past May to: 1) stop using amalgam in children now; and 2) develop a road map to phase out amalgam use as of 2021.

In South Asia, both the Bangladeshi Armed Forces and the Indian Armed Forces provide only mercury-free fillings for their soldiers, sailors and airmen — and their families.

In Central Africa, the Cameroon Baptist Convention ended amalgam use more than a decade ago in its large hospital system and dental clinics that dot the nation.

In West Africa, the Nigerian federal Consumer Protection Council distributes a brochure urging parents and consumers to consider mercury-free fillings for themselves and their children.

In the island nation of Mauritius, amalgam use for children has been effectively ended.

Internationally, the World Alliance for Mercury-Free Dentistry, teamed with UN Environment to co-sponsor a workshop on “Promoting Dental Amalgam Phase-Down Measures Under the Minamata Convention and Other Initiatives, For ‘Especially Women, Children and, Through Them, Future Generations’” in Bangkok. Experts hailing from 21 countries shared their wealth of experience in phasing down amalgam use — especially for children — in a variety of settings.