Since you read this newsletter, you probably already know that amalgam dental fillings are 50 percent mercury and that mercury-free filling choices are available.  But not everyone can make that choice. Whether insurance companies refuse to pay for mercury-free fillings or vulnerable children are subjected to it without their parents’ knowledge, mercury-based amalgam fillings still account for almost half of all fillings in the United States today.   

Mercury Poisons Our Children

Mercury — a potent poison — is not safe for anyone, but it is especially dangerous for children, whose developing brains are very sensitive to the neurotoxic effects of mercury. That is why it is never a good idea to implant an amalgam filling centimeters from your child’s brain.

But as long as dentists use amalgam, no child — including those without amalgam fillings — is safe from the long reach of its mercury. Why? The environmental reason: Dental amalgam is the largest use of mercury in America today. Amalgam’s mercury goes into the air we breathe, the ground soil that grows our vegetables, the lakes we fish from, and the community water supply we drink from. Children are still exposed to dental mercury by such everyday activities as:

Going to dental offices that use amalgam, which have higher levels of mercury in their air

Living or going to school near crematoria, which emit mercury from cremated bodies with amalgam in them

Eating fish with high mercury content, some of which comes from amalgam that is released into the environment

This week (August 20 through August 27), I am proud to match your donation dollar for dollar to the champion of the cause of mercury-free dentistry, Consumers for Dental Choice.  Consumers for Dental Choice has a great track record of success. Led by my friend, Charlie Brown, a former state attorney general, this nonprofit group ended the state gag rules which directed silence by dentists about the mercury in “silver fillings” (a false name if there ever was one). 

Consumers for Dental Choice created and led the world alliance that brought home the bacon at the Minamata Convention on Mercury, imposing a duty on every nation to scale down amalgam use and providing a road map on how to do it. And Consumers for Dental Choice prevailed over the pro-mercury forces to gain a spectacular visit in Europe this year. Here is your chance to keep the momentum going.

Victory in Europe!

Big policy changes don’t happen overnight. Take Sweden, famous for banning amalgam use in its country. Actually, Swedish policymakers needed a series of baby steps that led to a total ban. The one giant step among them was to ban amalgam use in children and pregnant women. Consumers for Dental Choice and its European allies were determined to see the Swedish success replicated. 

It took six years of meeting with government officials, submitting comments, presenting testimony, organizing the grassroots, collecting signatures for petitions, building a united team of European allies and meeting separately with each branch of its complicated government structure. It was all worth it. In banning amalgam for children and for pregnant and breast-feeding women, the European Union took the giant step toward banning mercury fillings! 

Last December, the three major institutions that decide policy for the European Union (EU) — the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Council of the European Union — reached a provisional agreement to partially ban amalgam use. The European Parliament voted 99 percent (663 to 8) to approve the agreement. As a result, on July 1, 2018:

Amalgam use in children under age 15 will be banned 

Amalgam use in pregnant women will be banned 

Amalgam use in breast-feeding mothers will be banned  

But there’s more! First, in 2019, each country in the European Union will be required to set a national plan on how it will reduce amalgam use. Second, in 2020 the European Commission must make its up-or-down recommendation on whether to phase out amalgam. Small wonder, then, that the European Parliament’s press release proclaims: This new regulation “aims to phase out the use of mercury in dental amalgam.”