The ADA Claims That Amalgam Has Been Safely Used For 150 Years
Description
This article is from the Dental Amalgam FAQ, by anonymous.
The ADA Claims That Amalgam Has Been Safely Used For 150 Years
Not so - the composition of the alloy has been changed
- most notably in the 1960's with the introduction of "high
copper" amalgams. This excellent abstract explains in detail..
Ulf Bengtsson - On the Instability of Amalgams.
Conventional amalgams are regarded as less favourable because
of their proneness to corrosion and mechanical weakness. An
invention by a Canadian scientist in 1963 marked the introduction
of the modern non-gamma-two amalgams said to overcome these
drawbacks. Now some thirty years later it is obvious that
they also exhibit a drastic reduction in stability. The emission
of mercury vapor - see Figure 2 - is drastically increased and
is combined with the formation of deposits on the surface
after abrasion, see picture above. No scientific article has
been accepted for publication on this striking and highly
visual phenomenon of instability - just a few IADR Abstracts
have been dealing with it.
These new amalgams were marketed for a long time in
opposition to the composition-standard in force. When they
became dominating on the market the standard was rewritten
allowing the use of non-gamma-two amalgams that had already
been sold for more than a decade. Standards for testing the
stability - emissions of toxic substances - of amalgams
are non-existing. One reason for the increased strength
of modern amalgams could be that they contain bronze.
Copper amalgam is currently used in Russia, in Norway until
1994 and in Sweden in the 1980'ies and is regarded as the
most unstable of all amalgams used. Their rate of corrosion
is legendary, in rare cases giving teeth a greenish colour
from corrosion products. Statistics on the use of this
material are lacking and scientific articles are few. It
was predominantly used in children with extensive caries
attacks. In an almost unknown letter from the Scandinavian
Institute of Dental Materials, NIOM the intake of metals
from copper amalgam is estimated. It is concluded that
the intake of mercury - in a worst case scenario - can
be 315 times that from food, see Figure 1. Except Norway
no other of the NIOM-countries or the NIOM board were
informed. Copper amalgams have also been used in Germany.
In the US copper amalgam has been used in an admixture
with conventional amalgam.
Excretion-rates of mercury in subjects with a fair amount
of amalgam fillings exceeds the WHO provisional limit
of total intake by food.
Testing of all types of dental materials including
composites, porcelains, cements and so on must take
place prior to the introduction on the market. Dental
materials - by far the most wide spread implant in
the population - must be subjected to both stability
tests revealing emitted substances and relevant biological
testing.
For the full text & photos for this article, see:-
http://vest.gu.se/~bosse/Mercury/default.html
Also make sure to read these books: Poison in Your Teeth: Mercury Amalgam (Silver) Fillings...Hazardous to Your Health! and Mercury Detoxification by Tom McGuire
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