Madison Area Lyme Support Group

The European Union Council has confirmed the decision of the EU Parliament to ban dental mercury amalgams starting in 2025. 

Mercury is one of the most harmful substances among the seemingly limitless pollutants present in a modern industrial nation. From the early “Mad Hatter” archetypes based on hatters using mercury in their work, to massive mercury pollution in Japan in the 20th Century, this substance has had a devastating impact on human health. Now Europe has stepped up with a ban on mercury-containing amalgam dental fillings.

World-wide momentum for a ban

On May 30th, 2024, we received confirmation that the European Union is banning dental amalgam fillings, which are about half mercury. The use and export of amalgam must end on January 1, 2025, and the manufacture and the import are banned as of July 1, 2026. The EU action applies to all 27 of its member states. The EU’s action comes on the heels of increasing crackdowns on dental amalgam in Europe, with bans by Sweden, Norway, and Denmark in 2009 and, in more recent years, moves by Finland, Ireland, Netherlands, Italy, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Moldova to also ban amalgams. There are ten other countries that are discouraging amalgam use, adding to the world-wide momentum against dental amalgam, a momentum that the US and its closest allies, Canada, the UK and Australia have so far resisted. That leaves the question: what is wrong with the US and its close allies? Can’t they see the same science and the same abundant clinical evidence that amalgam fillings, which are half mercury, are harmful? It is estimated that of all the people who have dental restorations, at least half of them have mercury amalgam fillings.

Alfred Stock’s important research

There has been a pitched battle in the US over the amalgam issue for three or four decades. Looking back even farther, we can also mention the work of Professor Alfred Stock, a prominent German chemist who, in the 1920s, discovered that his forgetfulness and brain fog were being caused by his own dental amalgam fillings. Stock’s health improved after he had his own amalgams removed, and he then diagnosed many friends’ problems and encouraged them to have their amalgams removed. He published more than thirty scientific papers on the subject, until his laboratory and most of his records were destroyed by allied bombing raids in World War II. That unfortunate bombing ended his research, and he died in near obscurity. (1)

Alfred Stock

Dr. Hal Huggins

But the torch never went out

A Brazilian dentist named Pinto incorporated Professor Stock’s science into his own investigations, and he passed on the information to his dentist son, Dr. Olympio Pinto. The latter met up with American dentist Dr. Hal Huggins at a conference in Mexico City in 1973. Pinto revealed that mercury from dental amalgams does leak, and Hal Huggins became a leading investigator of the issue in North America. On into the 1980s and 1990s, Dr. Huggins became a leading critic of amalgams, the head of a busy biological dental clinic in Colorado Springs, CO, and a favorite target of the American Dental Association’s (ADA’s) hostile attacks.

CBS 60 Minutes was a rare truthful media event

In 1990, CBS 60 Minutes did a resounding episode on the dental amalgam issue that was seen on TV by 30 million viewers. The ADA agreed to be interviewed on the show provided that Hal Huggins was not included in the program as one of the amalgam critics. The program catapulted the amalgam issue into public prominence and fueled the growth of holistic dental practices, the growth of scientific investigations, and a surge in consumer activism. DAMS, Dental Amalgam Mercury Solutions was formed in 1990, to educate the public, complementing the work already being done by the professional academies, IAOMT, IABDM and Holistic Dental Association. All of these groups emphasize the importance of having your amalgams removed safely, by a well-trained, well-equipped biological dentist, if they are going to be removed at all. (2)

 Witchhunts of the 1990s

But the 1990s saw major attacks by state dental boards against Hal Huggins in Colorado and against many other dentists in many other states. In 1995, the Colorado Dental Board took away Huggins’ license to practice, and the boards in many other states acted similarly. It was an era of “witchhunts,” with dentists who were removing dental amalgams of their patients being accused of practicing outside of the “standard of care” and of being “unethical.” The local media generally went along with the portrayal of Huggins and his followers as both being driven by greed and going against what the science says – science as described by the ADA.

The Watson-Burton bill

In 2003 a Congressional panel held hearings on the dental amalgam issue and what science actually says. Republican Dan Burton and Democrat Diane Watson jointly became chief authors of a bill to phase out dental amalgam fillings. It was assigned to the House Commerce Committee where it languished and died because it did not get nearly enough co-sponsors to get it a hearing in the committee. Sadly, the media let the issue whither for lack of attention; ever since the CBS 60 Minutes show in 1990, the major media has either ignored the issue or tells the ADA’s biased side of it.

The CATs media multimillion dollar blitz

In April of 2006, some very biased NIH-sponsored studies known as the Children Amalgam Trials (CATS) were completed and published, followed by an immediate media/public relations campaign claiming that, with the two studies, dental amalgams had definitely been shown to be safe for children (the implication being that they must be safe for everyone, so what should adults be worried about?). The DAMS newsletter published a detailed analysis showing that the study’s toxicological questions had not even been completed yet, and the data itself showed signs of mercury retention, particularly in boys. Critics of the studies said that these clinical trials were highly unethical pointing to the experimentation on young children from an orphanage, lured into participation with incentive gifts. But the big media ran with it without mentioning the research defects.

2009 FDA issues an amalgam rule

For decades, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had been dancing around the dental amalgam issue, failing to classify it (i.e., moderate risk, highest risk -requiring a proof of safety?), and finally on July 28, 2009, it did come out with an amalgam “rule.” It offered no protection to the public, and it looked like it had been written by the amalgam industry and the ADA.

The rule said: there was no reason to be careful of amalgam use in children (citing the defective CAT studies); no reason to be cautious about its use in pregnant women; no need for caution for people with neurological disorders (mercury is a notorious neurotoxin) or kidney problems; and no need to inform the patient that amalgam fillings contain mercury.

Dr Margaret Hamburg MD

Obama appointee, Dr Margaret Hamburg, MD, was the FDA commissioner at the time, and she participated in shaping the rule even though she had a glaring conflict of interest: she had served on the board of Henry Schein, Inc, America’s largest amalgam distributor and had received several hundreds of thousands of dollars for serving on its board.

The Global Mercury Ban Treaty

For many years, the countries of the world met annually to hammer out a global ban on mercury. In October 2013, 139 countries gathered in Minimata, Japan, to sign the treaty. While the treaty did help the environment by cracking down on mercury in thermometers, thermostats, and other industrial uses, it was very weak in its mention of dental amalgam. It also totally sidestepped mercury in vaccines, where it is injected directly into the human body as thimerosal, a preservative. So, it was a sweetheart deal for the ADA and for big pharma and its toxic vaccines. As far as protecting the public from its worst exposures to mercury, amalgams and vaccines, the reality was that the treaty missed the mark. But the annual global meetings were productive in giving a chance for the people gathered to share information about the dental amalgam issue and gave many of them the resolve to go back home and work for an amalgam ban in their own countries.

Conclusion 

The dental-medical/political-media establishment in the USA is very wedded to what appears to be a dental amalgam mercury cover-up. The media seems to have a pact to stay on message with the cover-up. Deep motives for this misconduct could possibly include: 1) avoiding the embarrassment and shame of being wrong on a hugely important public health issue and the resulting loss of funding and power, 2) a possible desire to  boost the profits of big pharma (people with illnesses and disorders provide a steady flow of customers for big pharma, and you can note that the biggest contributors to the ADA Health Foundation, in the million dollar category, are Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline), 3) possible population reduction (mercury is a reproductive toxin, causing birth defects and miscarriages), and 4) possibly mind control (mercury weakens a person’s mental clarity, perhaps making a person more willing to be a cog in a machine, guided by media messages, and by governmental authority figures).

Getting America, Canada, and the UK to ban amalgam mercury fillings looks daunting. Getting the media to cover the important issues of mercury and other major toxins also appears daunting. But many people out there are hungry for truth and for protecting freedom. Perhaps together we can all vow to carry on, so that the torch of truth and freedom never dies.