Mercury Poisoning from Dental Amalgams

Originally posted by Catgut ↑

Around 30 years ago my dentist told me that mercury vapour is constantly released from these fillings and a dental study had found that after removal some old fillings had much less than the original 50% mercury. It was found that most of it was lost by slowly vapourising. The study also found that the level of vapour in the mouth was well above the safety limits set for industrial workplaces! To see if it was true my dentist got hold of a metering device for mercury vapour and simply put the device inside a patient's open mouth and the needle went off the scale (his words). That patient only had one filling! That was enough for me - I had all mine replaced.

Just did some googling and came a cross an article which says something similar.

http://draxe.com/dangers-of-amalgam-fillings/

Apparently there is a conspiracy theory that the dentistry industry has been covering up to avoid crippling lawsuits. I didn't bother looking into it further since I no longer have mine.

I should add that although I had around 4 or 5 fillings at the time I didn't notice any difference over the years after replacement. However some the effects can be quite subtle so who knows.

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I had a mate who was a dentist. Worked three days a week until he had put together enough cash to retire. That's another story but he was alway very enthusiastic about the dentistry. Amalgam fillings he assured me were probably OK but once the newer light activated polymer fillings became available the recommendation was to replace amalgam to be on the safe side. One of his colleagues was the daughter of a dentist and worked one or two days a week. She was in her late 60s/early 70s when I knew her an that was 20 years ago. She told me they would always make the amalgam fillings by mixing extra mercury with the metal powder and squeezing the rest out. That tells me there probably isn't an actual strict formula for dental amalgam or at least there wasn't 50 years ago.

I think we are all better off without mercury in our mouths but the people who would have been most at risk would have been the dentists and their assistants. They would have been exposed to mercury vapour as an occupational hazard. Any spilt mercury that didn't get cleaned up would have slowly evaporated away, poisoning people in the process.

Longer ago than I care to disclose when I was a student, we were obliged the cover mercury spills with a product called HgX. The hazards of mercury vapour were certainly well known then.