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Old November 26th 06, 01:27 AM posted to misc.health.alternative,sci.med.dentistry,misc.kids.health,talk.politics.medicine,uk.people.health
Jan Drew
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Default Over 2,000 flood FDA with reports of illness from mercury dental fillings ,but agency still in denial, claiming secret pandemic is "rare"


"NOYB" wrote in message
ink.net...
With 1.6 billion amalgams out there, that's a pretty good safety record.


Mercury amalgams were never safe. Not one single study proving the safety.

diversion snipped



"Jan Drew" wrote in message
om...
Over 2,000 flood FDA with reports of illness from mercury dental
fillings,
but agency still in denial, claiming secret pandemic is "rare"


Thank you for taking the time to speak with me about the health risks of
mercury dental fillings and the recent FDA hearings, an issue which
deserves widespread public awareness. As mentioned, I've been involved in
educating the public about thiese dangers since 1998 when I was suddenly
stricken with double vision and diagnosed with MS, Lupus and Myasthenia
Gravis, as a result of dental treatment with a mercury fillings seven
days prior to the onset of neurological symptoms. My story:
http://www.toxicteeth.org/forms/mainLineToday.pdf

Marie Flowers, a Roanoke area resident, reported of her mercury filling
related illnesses in a September article: see also became seriously ill
from cronic exposure to mercury from her silver colored fillings.
Unfortunately, consumers aren't informed that silver fillings contain 50%
mercury, a known neuro-toxin. According to recent Zogby Poll conducted in
January 2006, 76% of American consumers still don't know that mercury is
the main ingredient in "silver" fillings and 77 % of those polled would
choose alternatives to mercury fillings, even if they cost more.

In Roanoke Times article:
Mouthful of mercury sparks activist's fight, the American Dental Assoc.
executive directer, Dr. James Bramson,stated:
"The more well-designed studies that are considered, the better the pool
of evidence for making treatment recommendations to patients," . "First
and foremost, we want scientific evidence to lead the way when it comes
to health care treatment."

Thousands of credentialed studies have been submitted to the Food and
Drug Adminstration by the International Academy of Oral Medicine and
Toxicology (www.iaomt.org) as well as hundreds of other scientific
sources, however, the FDA only chose 34 studies which they admittedly
located through a search on the internet. Hence the rejection of their
White Paper by the expert panel:

Two specific votes the panelists took in replying to two separate
questions said it all. The questions we

1. "Does the draft FDA White Paper objectively and clearly present the
current state of knowledge about the exposure and health effects related
to dental amalgam?"
2. "Given the amount and quality of information available for the draft
FDA White Paper, are the conclusions Reasonable?"
In both instances, seven panelists voted "YES" and thirteen voted a
resounding "NO."

As we discussed, I will contact mercury free dentists and patients in the
Roanoke area for possible interviews. Please feel free to contact me
should you want additional information..

Sincerely,

Freya Koss, Consultant

Consumers for Dental Choice (www.toxicteeth.org)

International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology (www.iaomt.org)



INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY OF ORAL MEDICINE AND TOXICOLOGY

CONSUMERS FOR DENTAL CHOICE



For Immediate Release Contacts:
Freya Koss, (610) 649-2606

Wednesday, November 15, 2006 Peter
Kelley, (202) 270-8831



Over 2,000 flood FDA with reports of illness from mercury dental
fillings,

but agency still in denial, claiming secret pandemic is "rare"



Consumers charge cover-up, press for ban starting with pregnant women and
children



WASHINGTON, Nov. 15-Since two expert panels of the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration voted Sept. 7 to reject staff conclusions that mercury
tooth fillings are safe, the FDA docket has received more than 2,000
filings from members of the public reporting adverse health effects,
agency officials confirm.



The reports include many heart-wrenching accounts of dental patients who
suffered painful and long-term debilitating illnesses after receiving
mercury fillings, many of whom recovered after their fillings were
replaced with non-mercury fillings and others who were unable to fully
regain their health due to a lifetime of mercury exposure. Most of the
reports demand public awareness and government intervention.



And yet, Susan Runner, FDA's Branch Manager of Dental Devices, still
maintained in a telephone interview this week with a representative of
the non-profit group Consumers for Dental Choice, that health effects
from mercury fillings are "rare," although she said it's "reasonable" to
assume that 5 percent of the U.S. population are affected (15 million
people).



In another highly publicized case, the FDA two years ago issued a public
health advisory for Paxil and Prozac after studies showed that barely 1
percent of patients experience akathisia, the severe agitation that can
lead to suicide, which FDA at the time reportedly considered a "frequent"
event.



Runner also described the submissions to FDA as "anecdotal," although
many accounts are from dentists themselves, such as Dr. Robert Boe, DDS,
who reported to FDA that, "I have seen dramatic improvement in patients
diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Hashimoto's thyroiditis, tachycardia,
tinnitus, acne, rheumatoid arthritis, sinusitis, chronic fatigue,
systemic candidiasis, and multiple chemical sensitivities, after the
amalgam was removed from their teeth and the mercury chelated from their
bodies. In my opinion, this could not be a placebo effect because white
blood cell counts were also affected."



One of the strongest statements came from Don Washkewicz, Chairman and
CEO of Parker Hannifin Corporation, a Fortune 200 company headquartered
in Cleveland, Ohio, who discovered that many of his health ailments were
the result of his mercury fillings. After research and regaining his
health following the fillings' removal, he wrote FDA, "I felt ethically
compelled to help my North American workforce (60,000 employees plus
family members)." Finding that most were still getting mercury fillings,
he changed the company dental plan to cover 100 percent of the cost of
composite (non-mercury) alternatives.



A registered nurse of 23 years charged that, "The ADA, AMA [American
Medical Association], and FDA have failed to protect the American people
from mercury poisoning.The FDA should require full disclosure of the
known dangers of mercury."



Meanwhile, the agency appears to have ignored 762 similar patient reports
of adverse reactions to mercury fillings, which were submitted to its
medical devices division in 1993. This led Consumers for Dental Choice
today to charge an ongoing cover-up at least since 1993 - if not for the
160 years that the dental and medical establishments have debated the
safety of mercury fillings. "No other pandemic health issue has been
intentionally swept under the rug for more than 160 years," said Freya
Koss, a spokeswoman for the group, whose account is one of the more than
2,000 the agency received this fall. "Why does the FDA continue to
suppress documentation about the adverse health effects of tooth fillings
containing 50 percent mercury, a known neurotoxin? Is it because they
find it hard to admit they have been wrong for so long?"



In contrast to the thousands of reports now flooding FDA's Dockets
Division, the American Dental Association has maintained for years that
"there have only been 50-100 reported cases of allergic reactions to
amalgam," as it said in a patient brochure entitled "Silver Fillings."
Likewise, in the September 2006 public hearings on the topic in
Gaithersburg, Md., the FDA's Dr. Richard Canady perpetuated the agency's
longstanding position that there are "exceedingly small numbers of
allergic reactions." And Runner said this week that such people are
"allergic," although researchers say that term doesn't apply.



Alfred Zamm, M.D., a Kingston, N.Y. practicing allergist and
dermatologist who has previously testified before FDA, says the term
"allergic reaction" is a misnomer, because "mercury is a biological
poison and not an allergen." Zamm says "some individuals are more
genetically sensitive and less resistant than others, causing even a
small amount of mercury emanating from silver/amalgam fillings to induce
a variety of symptoms, some extremely disabling such as fatigue, central
nervous and immune system dysfunction, inappropriate coldness,
gastrointestinal disturbances, rhinitis, dermatitis, and asthma." This
group, he says, "should serve as a marker that warns of the potential
dangers of dental mercury to the rest of the population who are also at
risk, but may not yet exhibit symptoms."



One or the other of two genetic traits that predispose people to mercury
toxicity occurs in as much as 20 percent of the U.S. population,
according to Boyd Haley, PhD, a researcher and chemistry professor at the
University of Kentucky in Lexington.



David Carpenter, M.D., professor of environmental health and toxicology
at the University of Albany's School of Public Health, also disputes the
description of these people as "allergic" to mercury. "It is not that one
becomes allergic to mercury, but rather that the continuous leaching of
mercury from amalgam fillings can alter the immune system and bias it
toward hypersensitivity and allergies," he said. "The extreme
hypersensitivity reaction is expressed as autoimmune disease, where one
becomes allergic to your own body. This is most often expressed as
autoimmune kidney disease, but may also be expressed as lupus, multiple
sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and autoimmune thyroid disease."



Carpenter added, "There has been no scientific evidence that mercury
fillings are safe, but there are many studies that indicate that it may
be very harmful. Therefore the responsible action of the FDA should be to
apply the precautionary principle, which is the principle that in the
face of incomplete evidence of danger to human health the appropriate
action is to avoid exposure and to stop using mercury amalgams."



The FDA is facing action on several fronts for its failure to address the
hazards of mercury fillings:

a.. Four nonprofit groups and two state officials sued the FDA on April
27, 2006 over its inaction on mercury fillings, in Moms Against Mercury
v. Leavitt , before the Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. (see
http://www.toxicteeth.org/Petition_FDA_042006.pdf ). The case has been
accepted on the merits and is proceeding to discovery.
b.. On June 1, 2006, the plaintiffs filed a motion asking the court
itself to ban mercury fillings until FDA complies with the Food Drug and
Cosmetic Act and the National Environmental Policy Act (see
http://www.toxicteeth.org/FDA_Motion..._June2006.pdf).
c.. Members of Consumers for Dental Choice, the Mercury Policy Project,
and the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology (IAOMT),
filed a petition with FDA on Sept. 5, 2006, seeking an immediate ban on
the use of mercury tooth fillings in pregnant women to protect the
development of their unborn babies. Under the federal Food, Drug &
Cosmetic Act, the FDA has six months to respond, or until March 2007.
d.. Members of two FDA expert scientific panels voted 13 to 7 on Sept.
7, 2006, following two days of public hearings, to reject the agency
staff's White Paper, calling it "unreasonable" to consider mercury
fillings safe in light of the gap of literature presented, testimony of
U.S. and international researchers, and poignant reports of more than 50
people who testified to the panels about illnesses due to their mercury
fillings, many of whom recovered following removal of the fillings.
e.. The IAOMT formally requested after the hearings that the
commissioner of FDA reconvene them to hear more testimony, since the
staff failed to consider all peer-reviewed studies finding hazards from
mercury fillings - including European research, although the FDA since
1990 had promised to consider international science on the subject. The
IAOMT, which sponsors independent research on the topic, has not received
a reply on its request to reconvene the panels.
The so-called "silver" fillings still applied some 70 million times a
year in the United States contain about three-quarters of a gram of
mercury each, or about as much as an old-fashioned thermometer. A person
with eight fillings has the equivalent of six grams of mercury in his or
her body, a concentration sufficient to shut down a school chemistry lab
or bring a toxic clean-up crew to a lake.



While "white" composite fillings are becoming more prevalent today,
largely for aesthetic reasons, there is concern that less-educated,
lower-income populations will be subjected to mercury fillings
indefinitely unless the government intervenes and traditional dentistry's
insistence that mercury is safe is challenged.



"There is clear evidence the mercury vapor is released from amalgam
fillings and is ingested, inhaled, and converted to methyl mercury by
bacteria in the mouth and gastrointestinal tract," Carpenter said, citing
a study in the Journal of Nutrition and Environmental Medicine (6:33-36:
1996), "causing chronic low-dose exposure to mercury. The most serious
harm is to the developing nervous system, resulting in a reduced IQ,
learning disabilities and behavioral problems in children. Adults are
also vulnerable."



The World Health Organization and United Nations Global Mercury
Assessment Working Group concluded that mercury in fillings is hazardous
both to human health and the environment, and that "dental mercury
fillings constitute the main mercury exposure risk to humans, exceeding
food, air and water sources combined."



Zamm, who was an expert speaker in 1991 at the FDA's previous hearing on
the "Potential Toxicity of Dental Amalgam," and was among the 1993 group
of commenters, says that today "we have 1826 dental care in the year 2006
because FDA 'grandfathered' dental amalgam without subjecting it to the
standard 'double-blind-crossover' testing of safety that all modern
medicines have to go through before approval -- the same loophole that
allowed tobacco and lead water pipes to come into our daily lives."



Zamm warns: "If you are suffering from an unexplained illness, put
mercury fillings on your list of possible causes."



As long ago as 1883, William P. Wesselhoeft, M.D., a prominent Boston
physician, presented several case histories of patients who fully
recovered after amalgam removal from diseases such as severe gastritis,
oral and throat ulcerations, Meniere's disease, tinnitus, hearing loss,
vertigo, drooping eyelid (a diagnostic symptom of myasthenia gravis), and
skin rash. Every single symptom and disease described by Dr. Wesselhoeft
is included in the recent submissions to the FDA, including a dental
assistant diagnosed with Meniere's disease who pleaded with the FDA panel
to act.



Dr. Alfred Stock, a German chemist, wrote a landmark paper on his
ailments from mercury fillings in 1926, saying, "Since the discovery of
our misfortune I have found out about a dozen certain cases of insidious
mercury poisoning, just in the circle of my acquaintances. They almost
always have the same symptoms. Often the correct cause was missed and
therefore the correct treatment was missed as well."



Koss herself was misdiagnosed as having lupus, muscular sclerosis and
myasthenia gravis, but experienced rapid remission of symptoms when her
own mercury fillings were removed, though she still suffers vision
problems. She has since tested positive for one of the two genetic traits
that predispose people to mercury toxicity.



"In spite of a plethora of credentialed scientific studies proving health
and environmental hazards of mercury fillings, and thousands of
submissions to the FDA reporting adverse health reactions, the agency
continues to claim these commonly used fillings are harmless and related
systemic illnesses are rare or non-existent," Koss said. "This latest
public response should be a wake-up call to the U.S. government's health
agencies and the dental industry, to heed the science and the wishes of
the public and stop the use of mercury in teeth, starting with an
immediate ban for pregnant women and children."



The FDA docket remains open for now. Public comments may be emailed to
with the subject, Docket # 2006N-0352 - Mercury
fillings.

###

Comments by Charlie Brown,
national counsel for Consumers for Dental Choice.
Despite the FDA's careful planning for this two-day hearing reviewing
scientific research on the neurolgoical health risks associated with
mercury silver fillings, the two panels convened and after two days of
riveting testimony summarily rejected the White Paper. Charles G. Brown,
the national counsel for Consumers for Dental Choice, said the paper
consisted of "shopworn rhetoric, selected studies (some of whom were
misinterpreted) and out-of-date conclusions about mercury toxicity; in
short, the staff paper argued that mercury fillings were safe."
After the hearing, Brown wrote: "Virtually all expressed concern in one
or more of the following three areas:

(1) the need for informed consent (real informed consent, telling about
the mercury and its effect);

(2) the need to stop usage for pregnant women and children; and

(3) the reality that a substantial number of persons are severely
hypersensitive. Some highly intelligent and educated consumers testified
that they had no idea that "silver" fillings are mercury - until it was
too late."