Amalgam filling facts

• Amalgam is the name given to the mercury (Hg) containing metal dental filling.
• Amalgam daily releases 17 micrograms of mercury into the body, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), i.e. more than three billion mercury atoms daily.
• More than 90% of the excretable mercuray in humans is derived from amalgam fillings.
• Hg crosses the maternal placenta into the tissue of a developing foetus.
• Hg is capable of inducing auto-immune diseases, kidney conditions, neurological complications and many chronic illnesses (over 200 symptoms).
• Hg immediately and continually challenges the kidney's functioning.
• Hg can enhance the prevalence of multiple antibiotic-resistant intestinal bacteria.
• Hg is extremely toxic, even more toxic than lead and arsenic.
• People exposed to Hg on a sustained basis, such as having Hg-containing fillings, are at risk to lowered fertility.
• The dental sector is the third largest user of Hg and the single largest discharger of Hg into US waters.
• Approximately 100 million amalgams are placed in patients each year by 175 000 US dentists, thereby using 44 tons of mercury.
• The amount of Hg in one average filling exceeds the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) standard for human exposure for over 100 years.
• It takes only 0,5 grams of Hg (the amount of Hg in one average filling) to contaminate all fish in a 10-acre lake.
• The EPA declared dental amalgam a hazardous waste in 1988. If a dentist places dental amalgam in a lake, or buries it in the ground, he would be breaking the law. Yet it is still acceptable (sic) to place it in a human mouth!
• The metallic mercury used by dentists to manufacture dental amalgam is shipped as a hazardous material, but according to the American Dental Association (ADA) the mouth is considered a safe "storage container" for this toxic material.
• The FDA has never accepted "dental amalgam" and has only classified "dental mercury" and "amalgam alloy" separately. And to top it all, the dentist who makes the amalgam has the sole responsibility of the "reaction product", and will be left "holding the bag" if legal actions were to take place.

- Information supplied by Dr Ilona Visser

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