Dear Doctor,
FDA’s dramatic reversal of its position on mercury fillings — warnings for children, pregnant women, lactating women, and several other population subsets — became our breakthrough point with the national (and international)media. Some of the more prominent stories are on the home page on our website, www.toxicteeth.org
For your patients — and for your critics at the state dental board and pro-mercury dentists in your community — I would point to two particularly strong quotations in the new FDA website, http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/consumer/amalgams.html
** In response #3, FDA states: “Dental amalgams contain mercury, which may have neurotoxic effects on the nervous systems of developing children and fetuses.”
** In response #6, FDA states: “Pregnant women and persons who may have a health condition that makes them more sensitive to mercury exposure, including individuals with existing high levels of mercury bioburden, should not avoid seeking dental care, but should discuss options with their health practitioner.”
Since children, fetuses, pregnant women, and lactating women are mentioned repeatedly in the FDA website, one should safety conclude, as a minimum, that neither persons 19 nor women of childbearing age should get a mercury filling. In the coming year, as we work to get the right result when FDA formally classifies, we must make such a position into the legal reality.
Charlie
21 June 2008
Consumers for Dental Choice
Ph. 202.544-6333; fax 202.544-6331
charlie@toxicteeth.org, www.toxicteeth.org