EU Scientific Committee: Mercury in dental fillings 'no danger'
CategoriesOn 15 January, Reuters reported about a European scientific Committee report stating that Amalgams pose no health risk to the human nervous system.
Mercury vapor escaping from extracted tooth subjected to heat (from this video)
The report was prepared by the Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR) which is made up of external experts. According to Ulla Danielsen, a Danish journalist, the committee consists of seven members, four of which are dentists and have declared to have connections with the dental industry.The report is available in PDF format from the EU Committe's website.
SCENIHR recognises that dental amalgam is an effective restorative material and, from the perspectives of longevity, the mechanical performance and health economics, may be considered the material of choice for some restorations in posterior teeth, including replacement therapy for existing amalgam fillings. However, because dental amalgam is neither tooth-coloured nor adhesive to remaining tooth tissues, its use has been decreasing in recent years and the alternative tooth-coloured filling materials have become increasingly more popular.This rather upbeat assessment of mercury dental fillings however seems to be contradicted by what is generally known about the toxicity of the highly volatile metal, which the Committee acknowledges with the following words:
Mercury is the major metallic element used in dental amalgam. It is recognized that mercury in general does constitute a toxicological hazard, with reasonably well defined characteristics for the major forms of exposure, involving elemental mercury, organic and inorganic mercury compounds. It is accepted that the reduction in use of mercury in human activity would be beneficial both for the decrease in indirect human exposure and environmental considerations.The report is clearly industry-friendly and - contrary to what the Committee's name would seem to indicate - is leaving the "emerging health risks" of mercury unexplored. This has led to protests by a number of scientists, medical doctors and associations including the French association "No to dental mercury", Vera Stejskal, Professor of Immunology at the University of Stockholm, Sweden, the International Academy of Oral Medicine & Toxicology, Dr. Joachim Mutter of the Institute for Environmental Medicine in Freiburg, Germany, the Swedish Chemicals Agency (KEM) and the European Academy for Environmental Medicine in Würzburg, Germany.
It also is worthy of note that the report appears to be completely out of tune with the European Commission's strategy to gradually eliminate mercury from the environment by reducing production and instituting strict controls on how mercury must be eliminated. The EU has a toxic hazards strategy to eliminate mercury, but according to the SCENIHR report there is nothing wrong with putting the poison in people's mouths. That just doesn't make any sense!
A public protest asking that the EU report be withdrawn and that a new expert group consisting of both competent and impartial experts be appointed to rewrite it, is available at the website of the Luxembourg based association AKUT.
You can sign the protest on this page.
Danish journalist Ulla Danielsen has more to say...
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EU-CITIZENS MAKE POLITICAL DEMAND
A collection of signatures has been initiated on the internet. In 10 european languages environmentalists urge EU authorities to withdraw report.
By Ulla Danielsen, journalist
Citizens in Europe have initiated a cross-border collection of signatures demanding an official report of the EU to be withdrawn.
The writers of the disputed report are accused of having close relationships with the dental industry. Their message is coloured by these connections, when they maintain in the report that amalgam containing mercury poses no health risks, the environmentalists point out.
The conclusions of the pro-amalgam report have been much exposure through the global news media. The danish Dentist’s Journal has quoted the report's conclusions, saying that amalgam is safe.
The EU-citizens protest targets the so-called SCHENIHR-report about the safety of dental amalgams.
The committee behind the report consists of seven members. Four of them are dentists, and they have all declared that they have connections with the dental industry.
However, even the chairman of the group, professor D.F. Williams of Great Britain, whose CV is available on internet, probably cannot declare to be without connections to the dental industry, assumes medical doctor Helge Volkmann, Copenhagen, who has studied the SCHENIHR-report. Helge Volkmann is a member of an international forum, which has initiated a collection of signatures to put pressure on the EU authorities to withdraw the report.
The collection of signatures takes place on initiative of the environmental organization AKUT based in Luxembourg.
"We have experienced, that the public health systems in the EU-countries haven’t dedicated themselves to acquiring a competent knowledge about diagnostics and treatment of amalgam- and mercury poisoning", the environmentalists write on AKUT’s homepage. They point out that the writers of the report in question neither have “competent medical knowledge” as it is expressed nor have they mercury-poisoned patients in treatment. “We protest against the content and the conclusions in the EU-report”, writes AKUT among other things on their homepage, and they not only ask for a withdrawal of the report, but also for a new report to be written by a group of independent and competent scientists.
The collection of signatures on AKUT’s homepage takes place in several languages: French, English, German, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.
Furthermore nine international experts, who are either medical doctors or researchers and come from Sweden, Germany, France, Norway, the USA and Denmark, have complained to the EU-authorities about the SCHENIHR-report’s conclusions and quality.
SCHENIHR is an abbreviation for “Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks. The report is titled: “The safety of dental amalgam and alternative dental restoration materials for patients and users”.
EU-REPORT SILENT ABOUT RESULTS FROM AUTOPSIES
The EU-report is being criticised for what it does not mention. Critics say that it is 30 years behind current science.
The so-called SCHENIHR-report whitewashes the health risks of mercury containing dental amalgams. One of nine European experts, the medical doctor Joachim Mutter of the University Hospital of Freiburg in Germany, wonders, why the writers of the report fail to mention the results of autopsies.
“Dental amalgam is without doubt the main source of the total human mercury burden”. That has been proven through many autopsy studies. Individuals with mercury fillings have been found to have from 2 to 12 times more mercury in body tissues than individuals without such fillings. Studies of autopsies are a most important and valuable tool in investigating the mercury burden caused by dental amalgams. "It is difficult to understand why the SCHENIHR-report makes no reference to results from autopsies" writes the german medical doctor in his complaint.
The Swedish university lecturer Mats Hanson expresses similar concerns about the SCHENIHR-report, “which make itself more noticeably for what is left out than for what it contains. The report does not reflect current knowledge about mercury and amalgams and seems to be 30 years behind in time. It seems to reflect wishful thinking of the industries and the dentist schools” writes Mats Hanson.
The british professor D.F. Williams and his six co-authors of the SCHENIHR-report on the other hand recommend that EU-authorities refrain from initiating further research concerning the safety of dental amalgams. In accordance with the points of view expressed in their report they “don’t see any advantages” in further research, they write.
See also:How Mercury causes Brain Neuron Degeneration
This video is from the university of Calgary. It shows how mercury kills brain neurons. Using live brain cultures, the mercury is introduced and the video shows how autism occurs.. Autism is mercury poisoning.
posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Thursday April 3 2008
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