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04/11/2007: "My Teeth Are Killing Me"

I am not sure I buy the genetic argument as to why my two brothers and I are all threatened with colon cancer at an early age. No one in my family has ever had cancer. And if you have seen the three of us together, you would know that our genes are not that close. So I have been searching for something we all have in common or have been exposed to. We haven’t lived in the same house for 20 – 30 years.

How about Silver Mercury Amalgam fillings in our teeth? Last week I made an appointment with a dentist to talk to him about “safely” removing all eleven fillings from my mouth. These are not small fillings either, they take up a large percentage of each tooth and were put in about 35 years ago. Since they are about 50% mercury, that puts over ½ gram of mercury per tooth for a total of 5.5g being ground together each day (and overnight) for quite some time. Evidence now demonstrates that these fillings are constantly being broken down, releasing mercury vapor and particles into the mouth.

Dr. Richard Fischer, past president of the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology states, “Dental amalgam fillings contribute more mercury to the body burden in humans than all other sources combined. The amount of mercury contained in one average size filling exceeds the U.S. E.P.A. standard for human exposure for over 100 years.” Amalgam material is shipped to the dentist as hazardous material and treated the same way when removed from your teeth.

Still, according to the ADA, a dentist who recognizes the toxicity of the fillings and recommends removal is acting unethically! So they can’t recommend taking them out of your mouth and they still put them in kids today, but if they drop one of them in a 10-acre lake, it is completely contaminated and they can be arrested. Hmmmmm! Those in the Alzheimer research field often directly blame the mercury in fillings.

The main story in today’s paper points out that the five refineries in the San Francisco Bay Area can not account for about 3,700 pounds of mercury each year that results from their processing. It seems that most of it is escaping as air pollution up the smokestacks and into our air then washing into the bay when it rains. Is anyone looking out for our health and the health of the planet?