Most of us know that radiation from X-rays can be harmful to our body. High amounts of radiation exposure can increase the risk of several types of cancer. Ionizing radiation from X-rays can potentially damage the DNA. A recent study published in Cancer, Journal of the American Cancer Society, provides further evidence about the dangers of X-rays. This study shows that frequent dental X-rays are linked to brain tumor called meningioma.
Dental x-ray exams significantly increase risk of brain tumor
This research found that people who received dental X-rays frequently were more than twice as likely to develop meningioma. Meningioma is the most common and potentially debilitating type of non-cancerous brain tumor. This tumor occurs in the meninges, which is the membrane that is around the spinal cord and the brain. Some of the effects of meningioma are headaches, problems with vision, loss of speech and motor control. These tumors may not be detected for several years until the size of the tumor gets large.
Based on the research findings, the bitewing and panorex dental X-ray exams increase the risk of developing the brain tumor. Patients who received bitewing x-ray exams annually or more frequently were more than twice as likely to develop meningioma. In a bitewing exam, the X-ray film is held between the teeth.
Receiving a panorex exam annually or more frequently increased the risk even more. The individuals in the group receiving panorex exam were three times more likely than the control group to develop a tumor. Panorex dental exam is the exam in which the dentist uses an external device to take the X-ray of the entire set of the teeth.
Children under ten years old are most vulnerable to radiation
According to the study findings, children under 10 years old were the most vulnerable group. Since children are still growing, the cells in the body are more sensitive to radiation. As a result, the radiation affects them more than the adults. Children exposed to radiation from dental X-rays had five times the risk of developing a tumor.
Some critics of the study argue that the frequency of dental X-ray exams was based on what the volunteers remembered. They argue that not many people remember past events. So a better study is needed to strengthen the link between dental X-ray and brain tumor.
Challenge your dentist whether you really need the dental X-ray
So what do the research findings mean for all of us? Basically we have to be aware of the dangers of unnecessary X-rays. When you go to the dentist’s office, usually the dentist will recommend an X-ray during each visit. You can ask your dentist whether the X-ray is really necessary. Especially if you have a child who has no risk of dental cavity, you can challenge your dentist that an X-ray may cause more harm than benefits.
Dr. Keith Black, chairman of neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, wrote about the dangers of frequent dental X-rays among young children in his 2009 book , “Brain Surgeon: A Doctor’s Inspiring Encounters with Mortality and Miracles.” The main reason for his concern is that the X-rays are aimed at not only the jaw but also the lower brain. Dr. Black claims that he hasn’t had a dental X-ray in 20 years.
Skipping unnecessary X-ray exams is also a great way to save money. Some of the dental exams cost several hundred dollars and these exams may or may not be covered by insurance.
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Do you have a chronic degenerative disease? If so, have you been told, “It’s all in your head?”
Well, that might not be that far from the truth… the root cause of your illness may be in your mouth.
There is a common dental procedure that nearly every dentist will tell you is completely safe, despite the fact that scientists have been warning of its dangers for more than 100 years.
Every day in the United States alone, 41,000 of these dental procedures are performed on patients who believe they are safely and permanently fixing their problem.
What is this dental procedure?
The root canal.
More than 25 million root canals are performed every year in this country.
Root-canaled teeth are essentially “dead” teeth that can become silent incubators for highly toxic anaerobic bacteria that can, under certain conditions, make their way into your bloodstream to cause a number of serious medical conditions—many not appearing until decades later.
Most of these toxic teeth feel and look fine for many years, which make their role in systemic disease even harder to trace back.
Sadly, the vast majority of dentists are oblivious to the serious potential health risks they are exposing their patients to, risks that persist for the rest of their patients’ lives.The American Dental Association claims root canals have been proven safe, but they have NO published data or actual research to substantiate this claim.
Fortunately, I had some early mentors like Dr. Tom Stone and Dr. Douglas Cook, who educated me on this issue nearly 20 years ago. Were it not for a brilliant pioneering dentist who, more than a century ago, made the connection between root-canaled teeth and disease, this underlying cause of disease may have remained hidden to this day. The dentist’s name was Weston Price—regarded by many as the greatest dentist of all time.
Weston A. Price: World’s Greatest Dentist
Most dentists would be doing an enormous service to public health if they familiarized themselves with the work of Dr. Weston Price. Unfortunately, his work continues to be discounted and suppressed by medical and dental professionals alike.
Dr. Price was a dentist and researcher who traveled the world to study the teeth, bones, and diets of native populations living without the “benefit” of modern food. Around the year 1900, Price had been treating persistent root canal infections and became suspicious that root-canaled teeth always remained infected, in spite of treatments. Then one day, he recommended to a woman, wheelchair bound for six years, to have her root canal tooth extracted, even though it appeared to be fine.
She agreed, so he extracted her tooth and then implanted it under the skin of a rabbit. The rabbit amazingly developed the same crippling arthritis as the woman and died from the infection 10 days later. But the woman, now free of the toxic tooth, immediately recovered from her arthritis and could now walk without even the assistance of a cane.
Price discovered that it’s mechanically impossible to sterilize a root-canaled (e.g. root-filled) tooth.
He then went on to show that many chronic degenerative diseases originate from root-filled teeth—the most frequent being heart and circulatory diseases. He actually found 16 different causative bacterial agents for these conditions. But there were also strong correlations between root-filled teeth and diseases of the joints, brain and nervous system. Dr. Price went on to write two groundbreaking books in 1922 detailing his research into the link between dental pathology and chronic illness. Unfortunately, his work was deliberately buried for 70 years, until finally one endodontist named George Meinig recognized the importance of Price’s work and sought to expose the truth.
Dr. Meinig Advances the Work of Dr. Price
Dr. Meinig, a native of Chicago, was a captain in the U.S. Army during World War II before moving to Hollywood to become a dentist for the stars. He eventually became one of the founding members of the American Association of Endodontists (root canal specialists).
In the 1990s, he spent 18 months immersed in Dr. Price’s research. In June of 1993, Dr. Meinig published the book Root Canal Cover-Up, which continues to be the most comprehensive reference on this topic today. You can order your copy directly from the Price-Pottenger Foundation.
What Dentists Don’t Know About the Anatomy of Your Teeth
Your teeth are made of the hardest substances in your body.
In the middle of each tooth is the pulp chamber, a soft living inner structure that houses blood vessels and nerves. Surrounding the pulp chamber is the dentin, which is made of living cells that secrete a hard mineral substance. The outermost and hardest layer of your tooth is the white enamel, which encases the dentin.
The roots of each tooth descend into your jawbone and are held in place by the periodontal ligament. In dental school, dentists are taught that each tooth has one to four major canals. However, there are accessory canals that are never mentioned. Literally miles of them!
Just as your body has large blood vessels that branch down into very small capillaries, each of your teeth has a maze of very tiny tubules that, if stretched out, would extend for three miles. Weston Price identified as many as 75 separate accessory canals in a single central incisor (front tooth). For a more detailed explanation, refer to an article by Hal Huggins, DDS, MS, on the Weston A. Price Foundation website.(These images are borrowed from the Huggins article.)
Microscopic organisms regularly move in and around these tubules, like gophers in underground tunnels.
When a dentist performs a root canal, he or she hollows out the tooth, then fills the hollow chamber with a substance (called guttapercha), which cuts off the tooth from its blood supply, so fluid can no longer circulate through the tooth. But the maze of tiny tubules remains. And bacteria, cut off from their food supply, hide out in these tunnels where they are remarkably safe from antibiotics and your own body’s immune defenses.
The Root Cause of Much Disease
Under the stresses of oxygen and nutrient deprivation, these formerly friendly organisms morph into stronger, more virulent anaerobes that produce a variety of potent toxins. What were once ordinary, friendly oral bacteria mutate into highly toxic pathogens lurking in the tubules of the dead tooth, just awaiting an opportunity to spread.
No amount of sterilization has been found effective in reaching these tubules—and just about every single root-canaled tooth has been found colonized by these bacteria, especially around the apex and in the periodontal ligament. Oftentimes, the infection extends down into the jawbone where it creates cavitations—areas of necrotic tissue in the jawbone itself.
Cavitations are areas of unhealed bone, often accompanied by pockets of infected tissue and gangrene. Sometimes they form after a tooth extraction (such as a wisdom tooth extraction), but they can also follow a root canal. According to Weston Price Foundation, in the records of 5,000 surgical cavitation cleanings, only two were found healed.
And all of this occurs with few, if any, accompanying symptoms. So you may have an abscessed dead tooth and not know it. This focal infection in the immediate area of the root-canaled tooth is bad enough, but the damage doesn’t stop there.
Root Canals Can Lead to Heart, Kidney, Bone, and Brain Disease
As long as your immune system remains strong, any bacteria that stray away from the infected tooth are captured and destroyed. But once your immune system is weakened by something like an accident or illness or other trauma, your immune system may be unable to keep the infection in check.
These bacteria can migrate out into surrounding tissues by hitching a ride into your blood stream, where they are transported to new locations to set up camp. The new location can be any organ or gland or tissue.
Dr. Price was able to transfer diseases harbored by humans to rabbits, by implanting fragments of root-canaled teeth, as mentioned above. He found that root canal fragments from a person who had suffered a heart attack, when implanted into a rabbit, would cause a heart attack in the rabbit within a few weeks.
He discovered he could transfer heart disease to the rabbit 100 percent of the time! Other diseases were more than 80 percent transferable by this method. Nearly every chronic degenerative disease has been linked with root canals, including:
Heart disease
Kidney disease
Arthritis, joint, and rheumatic diseases
Neurological diseases (including ALS and MS)
Autoimmune diseases (Lupus and more)
There may also be a cancer connection. Dr. Robert Jones, a researcher of therelationship between root canals and breast cancer, found an extremely high correlation between root canals and breast cancer.He claims to have found the following correlations in a five-year study of 300 breast cancer cases:
93 percent of women with breast cancer had root canals
7 percent had other oral pathology
Tumors, in the majority of cases, occurred on the same side of the body as the root canal(s) or other oral pathology
Dr. Jones claims that toxins from the bacteria in an infected tooth or jawbone are able to inhibit the proteins that suppress tumor development. A German physician reported similar findings. Dr. Josef Issels reported that, in his 40 years of treating “terminal” cancer patients, 97 percent of his cancer patients had root canals. If these physicians are correct, the cure for cancer may be as simple as having a tooth pulled, then rebuilding your immune system.
Good Bugs Gone Bad
How are these mutant oral bacteria connected with heart disease or arthritis? The ADA and the AAE claim it’s a “myth” that the bacteria found in and around root-canaled teeth can cause disease. But they base that on the misguided assumption that the bacteria in these diseased teeth are the SAME as normal bacteria in your mouth—and that’s clearly not the case.
Today, bacteria can be identified using DNA analysis, whether they’re dead or alive, from their telltale DNA signatures.
In a continuation of Dr. Price’s work, the Toxic Element Research Foundation (TERF) used DNA analysis to examine root-canaled teeth, and they found bacterial contamination in 100 percent of the samples tested. They identified 42 different species of anaerobic bacteria in 43 root canal samples. In cavitations, 67 different bacteria were identified among the 85 samples tested, with individual samples housing between 19 to 53 types of bacteria each. The bacteria they found included the following types:
Capnocytophagaochracea
Fusobacteriumnucleatum
Gemellamorbillorum
Leptotrichiabuccalis
Porphyromonasgingivalis
Are these just benign, ordinary mouth bugs? Absolutely not. Four can affect your heart, three can affect your nerves, two can affect your kidneys, two can affect your brain, and one can infect your sinus cavities… so they are anything BUT friendly! (If you want see just how unfriendly they can be, I invite you to investigate the footnotes.)
Approximately 400 percent more bacteria were found in the blood surrounding the root canal tooth than were found in the tooth itself, suggesting the tooth is the incubatorand the periodontal ligament is the food supply. The bone surrounding root-canaled teeth was found even HIGHER in bacterial count… not surprising, since bone is virtual buffet of bacterial nutrients.
Since When is Leaving A Dead Body Part IN Your Body a Good Idea?
There is no other medical procedure that involves allowing a dead body part to remain in your body. When your appendix dies, it’s removed. If you get frostbite or gangrene on a finger or toe, it is amputated. If a baby dies in utero, the body typically initiates a miscarriage.
Your immune system doesn’t care for dead substances, and just the presence of dead tissue can cause your system to launch an attack, which is another reason to avoid root canals—they leave behind a dead tooth.
Infection, plus the autoimmune rejection reaction, causes more bacteria to collect around the dead tissue. In the case of a root canal, bacteria are given the opportunity to flush into your blood stream every time you bite down.
Why Dentists Cling to the Belief Root Canals are Safe
The ADA rejects Dr. Price’s evidence, claiming root canals are safe, yet they offer no published data or actual research to substantiate their claim. American Heart Association recommends a dose of antibiotics before many routine dental procedures to prevent infective endocarditis (IE) if you have certain heart conditions that predispose you to this type of infection.
So, on the one hand, the ADA acknowledges oral bacteria can make their way from your mouth to your heart and cause a life-threatening infection.
But at the same time, the industry vehemently denies any possibility that these same bacteria—toxic strains KNOWN to be pathogenic to humans—can hide out in your dead root-canaled tooth to be released into your blood stream every time you chew, where they can damage your health in a multitude of ways.
Is this really that large of a leap? Could there be another reason so many dentists, as well as the ADA and the AAE, refuse to admit root canals are dangerous? Well, yes, as a matter of fact, there is. Root canals are the most profitable procedure in dentistry.What You Need to Know to AVOID a Root Canal
I strongly recommend never getting a root canal. Risking your health to preserve a tooth simply doesn’t make sense. Unfortunately, there are many people who’ve already have one. If you have, you should seriously consider having the tooth removed, even if it looks and feels fine. Remember, as soon as your immune system is compromised, your risk of of developing a serious medical problem increases—and assaults on your immune system are far too frequent in today’s world.
If you have a tooth removed, there are a few options available to you.
Partial denture: This is a removable denture, often just called a “partial.” It’s the simplest and least expensive option.
Bridge: This is a more permanent fixture resembling a real tooth but is a bit more involved and expensive to build.
Implant: This is a permanent artificial tooth, typically titanium, implanted in your gums and jaw. There are some problems with these due to reactions to the metals used. Zirconium is a newer implant material that shows promise for fewer complications.
But just pulling the tooth and inserting some sort of artificial replacement isn’t enough.
Dentists are taught to remove the tooth but leave your periodontal ligament. But as you now know, this ligament can serve as a breeding ground for deadly bacteria. Most experts who’ve studied this recommend removing the ligament, along with one millimeter of the bony socket, in order to drastically reduce your risk of developing an infection from the bacterially infected tissues left behind.
I strongly recommend consulting a biological dentist because they are uniquely trained to do these extractions properly and safely, as well as being adept at removing mercury fillings, if necessary. Their approach to dental care is far more holistic and considers the impact on your entire body—not JUST your mouth.
If you need to find a biological dentist in your area, I recommend visiting toxicteeth.org, a resource sponsored by Consumers for Dental Choice. This organization, championed by Charlie Brown, is a highly reputable organization that has fought to protect and educate consumers so that they can make better-informed decisions about their dental care. The organization also heads up the Campaign for Mercury-Free Dentistry.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) released its final report on dental amalgam, and has taken a stance against the use of mercury in dentistry — a move that could signal the beginning of the end for this toxic, outdated practice.
In their report, Future Use of Materials for Dental Restoration, WHO committed itself “to work for reduction of mercury and … facilitate the work for a switch in use of dental materials.”
The report states that amalgam “has been associated with general health concerns” and releases a “significant amount of mercury” into the environment.
It also notes that alternatives to amalgam are readily available.
WHO Finally Takes Stance Against Dental Mercury
The final WHO report urges “a switch in use of dental materials” away from amalgam.As reported by Charlie Brown, director of Consumers for Dental Choice,”[F]or many reasons,” WHO explains, “restorative materials alternative to dental amalgam are desirable.” As Consumers for Dental Choice, which was founded by Bob Jones and Sue Ann Taylor, reported, WHO noted the following three reasons for the new position:
Amalgam releases a “significant amount of mercury” into the environment, including the atmosphere, surface water, groundwater, and soil. WHO reports: “When released from dental amalgam use into the environment through these pathways, mercury is transported globally and deposited. Mercury releases may then enter the human food chain especially via fish consumption.”
WHO determines that amalgam raises “general health concerns”: While the report acknowledges that a few dental trade groups still believe amalgam is safe for all, the WHO report reaches a very different conclusion: “Amalgam has been associated with general health concerns.” The report observes: “According to the Norwegian Dental Biomaterials Adverse Reaction Unit, the majority of cases of side-effects of dental filling materials are linked with dental amalgam.”
WHO concludes “materials alternative to dental amalgam are available” and cites studies indicating they are superior to amalgam. For example, WHO says “recent data suggest that RBCs [resin-based composites] perform equally well” as amalgam. And compomers have a higher survival rate, says WHO, citing a study finding that 95% of compomers and 92% of amalgams survive after 4 years.In particular, WHO explains that “Alternative restorative materials of sufficient quality are available for use in the deciduous [baby] dentition of children” – the population whose developing neurological systems are most susceptible to the neurotoxic effects of dental mercury. Perhaps more important than the survival of the filling, WHO asserts that: “Adhesive resin materials allow for less tooth destruction and, as a result, a longer survival of the tooth itself.”
The report also included mention of the known toxic effects of mercury exposure, stating:
“Mercury is highly toxic and harmful to health. Approximately 80% of inhaled mercury vapor is absorbed in the blood through the lungs, causing damages to lungs, kidneys and the nervous, digestive, respiratory and immune systems. Health effects from excessive mercury exposure include tremors, impaired vision and hearing, paralysis, insomnia, emotional instability, developmental deficits during fetal development, and attention deficit and developmental delays during childhood.”
This is the latest revelation in a string of positive progress that has been made this year toward ridding the dental industry of dangerous mercury-containing amalgams.
Will FDA Have Dentists Warn about Dental Amalgams?
As a result of enormous public pressure from dentists, health professionals and consumers, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has also promised to make an announcement by year’s end about dental amalgam. While the agency is being vague about the substance of this announcement, it is known that FDA is currently reconsidering whether or not to warn the public of the dangers of dental amalgam, and possibly even restrict its use.
As the Chicago Tribune reported:
” … in response to concerns about its ruling, the FDA convened a panel last December to re-examine the issue and expects to make a new announcement by the end of this year.”
A series of grassroots protests, petitions, and town meetings in three states this year hosted by the FDA’s Center for Devices has resulted in the FDA’s reconsideration of its appalling 2009 amalgam rule.
Thanks to Consumers for Dental Choice, town meetings previously attended mostly by industry representatives pleading with the FDA to “go easier on them” are now instead being dominated by consumer advocates demanding government accountability. Their greatest hope is to see mercury amalgams banned altogether, but short of that, Consumers for Dental Choice hopes the FDA will at least make all consumers aware that amalgams are more than 50 percent mercury.
The American Dental Association (ADA) has historically covered up that fact, and, as the 1990 60 Minutes video above noted, even at one time declared that removing mercury fillings is unethical — despite the known fact that dental amalgam emits mercury vapor after it is implanted in your mouth, and this mercury is bioaccumulative and endangers your health in many ways.
Incidentally, the ADA also takes money from Coca-Cola and other companies whose products promote the formation of cavities. But the tide is certainly changing, as evidenced further by the FDA’s December 2010 hearings, which included two days of testimony that were alternatively scientific and emotional. The results were utterly convincing, even to scientists handpicked by FDA. With no dissent, they recommended that FDA promptly:
Make sure that all consumers and all parents know that amalgam is mainly mercury
Stop amalgam use for children and pregnant women
As panelist Dr. Suresh Kotagal – a pediatric neurologist at the Mayo Clinic – summed it up, there is “no place for mercury in children.”
Unprecedented press coverage accompanied these hearings, with every network and most major newspapers writing stories that FDA is determining the health risk of amalgam. Fifty percent of dentists are now mercury-free; you can help abolish the use of mercury fillings by supporting one of them. We are on the brink of prompting real change in the fight for mercury-free dentistry, as the FDA is set to make an announcement on mercury fillings by the end of 2011.
Other Countries Take Stance to Protect Against Mercury Fillings
The FDA panelists are not alone in their assertion that amalgam should no longer be used for children and pregnant women. Other countries are already working to protect vulnerable populations, especially children, from exposure to amalgam.
For example:
The 47 nations of the Council of Europe passed a resolution calling on the nations to start “restricting or prohibiting the use of amalgams as dental fillings,” explaining that “amalgams are the prime source of exposure to mercury for developed countries, also affecting embryos, fetuses (through the placenta) and children (through breastfeeding).Exposure to mercury can seriously affect the health of both patients and dental professionals, and early exposure to low doses of mercury (during pregnancy and through breastfeeding) increases the risk of a decrease in the intelligence quotient (IQ) among children.… According to the World Health Organization in 2005, certain studies show that mercury may have no threshold below which some adverse effects do not occur.”
Australia’s National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC) says amalgam should be avoided in pregnant women, nursing mothers, children, and people with kidney disease. As the government of the state of Queensland explained:“Amalgam is now generally avoided for filling children’s teeth. Growing children tend to be more sensitive to the effects of exposure to any chemical substance in their environment… High level exposure to mercury (which is present in silver fillings) may affect the kidneys. Therefore, the NHMRC, suggest people with kidney disease may be more concerned than others to minimize exposure to mercury.”
Health Canada directed its dentists to stop using amalgam in children, pregnant women, and people with impaired kidney function – way back in 1996.
Mercury Filling Health Risks in a Nutshell
The metallic mercury used by dentists to manufacture dental amalgam is shipped as a hazardous material to the dental office. Any amalgam leftover is also treated as hazardous and requires special precautions to dispose of, as it should because it can cause wide-ranging damage to your health.
Charlie Brown states:
” … mercury is a reproductive toxin. Meaning, of course, it can harm your unborn baby. It’s a neurotoxin meaning it can harm your brain. It’s a nephrotoxin meaning it will harm your kidneys. There is no safe level of mercury. This dentist is playing Russian roulette with your child or you if he or she is giving you a mercury filling.”
Virtually any kind of stimulation can cause these fillings to release mercury. Eating, drinking, brushing your teeth, grinding your teeth, chewing gum, anything. If you want to see the vapors released for yourself, watch the shocking video below.
Mercury vapor from the amalgams passes readily through cell membranes, across the blood-brain barrier, and into your central nervous system, where it causes psychological, neurological, and immunological problems. Children and fetuses, whose brains are still developing, are most at risk, but really anyone can be impacted.
Further, dental mercury is the number one source of mercury in our wastewater, so dentists are handing the clean-up bill for their pollution to taxpayers and water ratepayers. And this mercury ends up in your food supply, where it can cause continued damage to your health if you eat fish and other contaminated seafood.
Alternatives are Readily Available … and Desired by Most Americans
Far from being an essential dental product with no viable alternatives, amalgam is interchangeable with many other filling materials, as WHO noted — including resin composites and glass ionomers — which have rendered amalgam completely unnecessary for any clinical situation. In fact, the mercury-free alternatives are so advanced that entire nations, such as the Scandinavian countries, have stopped the use of amalgam. Already, about half of U.S. dentists are mercury-free and 77 percent of consumers who are told that amalgam contains mercury choose mercury-free alternatives.
One of the most popular alternatives to amalgam is resin composite. Resin composite is made of a type of plastic reinforced with powdered glass. It is already common throughout the U.S. and the rest of the developed world, offering notable improvements over amalgam, as it:
Is environmentally safe: Composite, which contains no mercury, does not pollute the environment. This saves taxpayers from paying the costs of cleaning up dental mercury pollution in our water, air, and land – and the costs of health problems associated with mercury pollution.
Preserves healthy tooth structure, because, unlike amalgam, it does not require the removal of significant amounts of healthy tooth matter. Over the long term, composite preserves healthy tooth structure and actually strengthens teeth, leading to better oral health and less extensive dental work over the long-term.
Is long-lasting: While some claim that amalgam fillings last longer than composite fillings, the science reveals this claim to be baseless. The latest studies show that composite not only lasts as long as amalgam, but actually has a higher overall survival rate.
A lesser-known alternative is increasingly making mercury-free dentistry possible even in the rural areas of developing countries. Atraumatic restorative treatment (also called alternative restorative treatment or ART) is a mercury-free restorative technique that has been demonstrated a success in a diverse array of countries around the world, including Tanzania, India, Brazil, Zimbabwe, Turkey, South Africa, Thailand, Canada, Panama, Ecuador, Syria, Hong Kong, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Chile, Nigeria, China, Uruguay, Peru, and the United States.
ART relies on adhesive materials for the filling (instead of mercury) and uses only hand instruments to place the filling, making it particularly well-suited for rural areas of developing countries.
How to Have Amalgam Fillings Properly Removed
It should be clear that there’s simply no such thing as a safe mercury filling. However, please do NOT make the mistake of having your amalgam fillings removed by a dentist who is not properly trained in safe amalgam removal. Doing so could expose you to tremendous health risks, due to the large amounts of mercury vapor being released during the removal process. Research has shown that if you do not take proper safety precautions during the removal process, mercury levels in your blood can rise three to four-fold, which may result in acute toxicity.
SO PLEASE …
Make sure to use a so-called biological dentist that is trained in properly removing mercury fillings. Some things that need to be done to keep you (and your dentist) safe during the procedure include:
Providing you with an alternative air source and instructing you not to breathe through your mouth
Using a cold-water spray to minimize mercury vapors
Putting a rubber dam in your mouth so you don’t swallow or inhale any toxins
Using a high-volume evacuator near the tooth at all times to evacuate the mercury vapor
Washing your mouth out immediately after the fillings have been removed (the dentist should also change gloves after the removal)
Immediately cleaning your protective wear and face once the fillings are removed
Using room air purifiers
For a complete description of how to safely remove mercury amalgam, see this PDF created by the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology (IAOMT). The proper procedure is also explained in the featured video. Here are several sources to help you locate a dentist trained in biological dentistry:
Consumers for Dental Choice’s Campaign for Mercury-Free Dentistry
IAOMT’s database
International Academy of Biological Dentistry and Medicine
The Holistic Dental Association
Avoid making the same mistake I did 20 years ago when I had all my amalgams removed by a competent dentist. Unfortunately, he was clueless about mercury toxicity and used no precautions and as a result I got kidney damage. Additionally, I had to remove all the crowns he put in because they were metal. It was a very expensive and health-damaging mistake.
I also suggest you get healthy BEFORE having your fillings removed, as you want your detoxification mechanisms optimized prior to removal. To remove mercury that has already accumulated in your body, I highly recommend reviewing my Mercury Detoxification Protocol, which details the things you can do right now to help rid your body of this toxin. If your mercury levels are seriously elevated, you should work with a knowledgeable health care practitioner to help you through the detoxification process.
Help Keep the Ball Rolling to Get Mercury Out of the Dentist’s Office
Your voice is needed in order to bring about permanent change in the fight for mercury-free dentistry. We need to keep the momentum going between now and year’s end. You must urge the FDA to heed the advice of its own scientists convened in December 2010 and the World Health Organization. To voice your opinion, contact Dr. Shuren at:
Dr. Jeffrey Shuren, Director
Center for Devices, U.S. Food & Drug Administration
10903 New Hampshire Ave.
WO66-5431, Room 5442
Silver Spring, MD 20993-0002
Phone: 301-796-5900
Fax: 301-847-8149 or 301-847-8109
Email: jeff.shuren@fda.hhs.gov
The following are Charlie Brown’s recommended talking points for this contact:
Thank Dr. Shurenfor agreeing to act on amalgam fillings this year.
Please end the use of amalgam immediately for children, pregnant women, and hypersensitive adults (as a minimum).
Please make sure every parent knows amalgam is mercury, not silver, by making warnings mandatory. Every consumer should be told the truth about what’s going into their mouths, and their children’s mouths.
Please follow WHO’s lead and act now. In its 2011 report, the World Health Organization calls on health authorities like FDA to take action now: “Health authorities can play an active role in advocacy for use of dental materials alternative to amalgam.” It is time for FDA to act now, NOT an announcement that the FDA’s decision will be postponed. We have irrefutable scientific evidence about the dangers of mercury amalgams. Your children are being subjected to harm now—they can’t wait another year.
I also urge you to contribute to Consumers for Dental Choice. I strongly believe in their mission and their commitment to the Campaign for Mercury-Free Dentistry. They rely on public donations to complete this important mission. (Consumers for Dental Choice is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to advocating mercury-free dentistry. Contributions are tax-deductible in the U.S.)
