Bringing Home the European Union's Ban on Mercury Fillings
In a landmark decision, the European Union has officially banned the use of dental amalgam - the controversial 'silver' fillings that are 50% mercury.
By: Charlie Brown, Executive Director, Consumers for Dental Choice
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
Focusing our attention on dental amalgam throughout Mercury Awareness Week, August 18 to 25, we show how Consumers for Dental Choice is fighting for mercury-free dentistry for all
This Mercury Awareness Week, we’re celebrating a major victory in Europe: Consumers for Dental Choice and the coalition it assembled just succeeded in getting mercury-based amalgam dental fillings banned in the 27-nation European Union
Now Consumers for Dental Choice is implementing its plan for victory on this side of the Atlantic — pushing government programs to go mercury-free, working with mercury-free dentists across America, and urging consumers and parents to demand mercury-free dentistry
You can help! Dr. Mercola, a longtime champion of mercury-free dentistry, will match your gift to Consumers for Dental Choice dollar for dollar (up to a total of $150,000) until August 25, 2024 — doubling your impact
It's Mercury Awareness Week. Now we honor the mercury-free dentists, urge consumers to demand mercury-free dentistry, and explain to our supporters — past, present, and future — how their valuable dollars are helping us stop the use of mercury in dentistry here and abroad.
Consumers for Dental Choice is grateful to health champion Dr. Joseph Mercola, who again matches every gift (up to a total of $150,000) through August 25, 2024. Read on to learn more about why our small but effective and efficiently-run nonprofit group merits your charitable support!
The Problem With So-Called 'Silver' Fillings
Amalgam (misleadingly called "silver" fillings) is a filling material that is 50% mercury — a neurotoxin that:
Endangers human health — Dental amalgam releases mercury vapor. Children, the unborn, the hypersensitive, and dental personnel are especially vulnerable to the toxic effects of mercury. Moreover, amalgam requires the removal of healthy tooth matter, weakens tooth structure, and cracks teeth as it expands and contracts — all of which does long-term damage to the tooth.
Pollutes our environment — Dental amalgam, a major source of mercury pollution, reaches the environment via many unsound pathways. For example, when sewage sludge contaminated by amalgam is used as fertilizer, dental mercury contaminates our soil. When human waste from individuals with amalgam enters the wastewater, dental mercury reaches our water, and when bodies with amalgam are cremated, dental mercury pollutes our air.
Contaminates dental workplaces — Due to mercury exposure from amalgam in the workplace, studies have shown that dental workers have elevated systemic mercury levels. Many of these dental workers — including dentists, dental assistants, dental hygienists, and office workers — are women of child-bearing age, which makes them particularly susceptible to the occupational hazards associated with mercury.
There's only one way to stop the problems caused by dental mercury: abolish amalgam. And Consumers for Dental Choice, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, is dedicated to doing just that!
Consumers for Dental Choice's Campaign for Mercury-Free Dentistry
Consumers for Dental Choice has already succeeded in making progress toward mercury-free dentistry at every level by:
Ending state dental board gag rules preventing dentists from advising, advertising, and advocating for mercury-free dentistry and persuading several states to require amalgam fact sheets for patients.
Suing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to get an amalgam regulation issued and then convincing FDA to issue a safety communication warning against amalgam use in children; women who are pregnant, breastfeeding, or planning to become pregnant; and patients with a neurological condition, kidney disease, or hypersensitivity to any of the components of amalgam.
Winning an amalgam reduction requirement in the Minamata Convention on Mercury; passing an amendment that calls for the end of amalgam use in children, pregnant women, and breastfeeding mothers; and gaining laws banning amalgam in Philippines, Nepal, Gabon, and St. Kitts & Nevis.
And most recently, our biggest victory to date: an amalgam ban in the 27-nation European Union!
Victory in the European Union
It's official: the European Union has banned amalgam! As the European Council explains in its press release:
"Today, the Council adopted a regulation to completely ban the use of dental amalgams … The regulation will now be signed and published in the Official Journal of the EU. It will enter into force on the twentieth day following publication and become directly applicable in all member states."
With this new regulation, we win four major victories:
Amalgam use ends in all EU countries on 1 January 2025 (with only narrow exemptions that will be up for review by the end of 2029).
Amalgam manufacture in the EU is phased out as of 1 July 2026.
Amalgam exports from the EU are banned as of 1 January 2025.
Amalgam imports into the EU are banned as of 1 July 2026.
When Consumers for Dental Choice and our European allies started our campaign abroad, the EU was the largest user of amalgam in the world and the pro-mercury European dental associations were dug in. We had our work cut out for us. So, I assembled a team from most of the 27 Member States, who kept knocking on government doors.
We went to Brussels and Strasbourg repeatedly. We submitted reams of comments to scientific committees, the European Commission, and other decision-makers. We outshone the opposition at the unending sequence of hearings held by the European Commission.
Our persistent campaign won the 2017 EU regulation that banned the use of amalgam in children, pregnant women, and nursing mothers, and then we kept pushing until we banned this mercury product for all EU nations!
Now — with the help of your donations matched by Dr. Mercola — we are bringing the EU victory home to America! We are starting by challenging government programs, dental manufacturers, and the American Dental Association to embrace a mercury-free future for dental care.
Making Government Programs Mercury-Free
After almost two decades of battle, Consumers for Dental Choice won amalgam warnings from FDA in 2020. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a safety communication on dental amalgam, finally recommending against amalgam use in people who are at higher risk from the adverse effects of mercury exposure, including:
Pregnant women and their developing babies
Women who are planning to become pregnant
Nursing women and their newborns and infants
Children, especially those younger than six years of age
People with pre-existing neurological disease
People with impaired kidney function
People with known heightened sensitivity (allergy) to mercury or other components of dental amalgam
This list, of course, encompasses a significant part of the population. As such, FDA's action has the potential to protect millions and millions of Americans from mercury in their mouths.
However, the single biggest purchaser of amalgam in the U.S. is our own government. Its dental programs continue to implant dental mercury into the teeth of American Indians and Native Alaskans receiving dental treatment from the Indian Health Service, children on Medicaid, and our soldiers and sailors getting dentistry from the military. We are demanding that the feds end this abuse (and misuse of your taxpayer money).
Pushing Manufacturers Out of the Mercury Fillings Business
For more than a decade, Consumers for Dental Choice held news events in amalgam manufacturers' home cities, organized petitions, filed shareholder resolutions demanding that companies reconsider amalgam sales, and urged the FDA to issue manufacturer guidance. But the industry dug in to defend its mercury product.
The FDA safety communication was the straw that broke the manufacturers' back. Consumers for Dental Choice and our allies followed up with letters to manufacturers signed by 118 environmental, consumer, and children's groups from across America and throughout the world.
Dentsply Sirona — one of the world's largest manufacturers of dental products — was the first to exit the amalgam market. In its annual report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, this industry behemoth quietly noted:
"[W]e have discontinued sales for all amalgam products as of December 2020."
Soon, the other major U.S. amalgam manufacturer, Kerr (currently a subsidiary of Envista Holdings Corporation and previously a subsidiary of Danaher), announced that it has "ceased manufacturing all Alloy products, including all of our amalgam products that may contain mercury."
With Dentsply and Kerr is out of the amalgam business, they can now focus on what they do best: developing and selling the many excellent mercury-free fillings available today!
Having pushed the U.S. publicly traded companies out of the amalgam business and banned European companies from exporting to anyone, we shift our focus to the importers from elsewhere, starting with our current campaign against the notorious Australian-based Southern Dental Industries. While other companies were exiting the amalgam business, SDI was boasting to shareholders:
In its 2021 annual report, SDI said the company will "continue to promote its Amalgam products to lower socio-economic markets."
In its 31 December 2022 interim report, SDI acknowledges it is targeting wealthier markets as well: "North America is still a strong Amalgam market and Amalgam sales in this market grew by 13.1% on pcp and represents 31.0% of North American sales … Additionally, the strong sales growth in the lower margin Amalgam product impacted overall gross margins."
In its 27 February 2023, earnings call, SDI tells investors "We've been able to get some good new customers in some of our products. One of them being the amalgam product … I think while we're in a great position [re amalgam], we may as well maximize that."
We're meeting with the Australian government and others to register our concerns about SDI's attempt to profit from exposing people to mercury.
Taking on the American Dental Association
The pro-mercury ADA isn't the power it used to be. Watching us overcome the combined forces of the German and French dental associations and the Council of European Dentists, the ADA has retreated from its former braggadocio about amalgam.
The main lobbying force for amalgam since the Civil War, the American Dental Association, has realigned its position. After promoting and profiting from mercury in the mouth and loudly proclaiming its safety, this double amalgam patentholder has started to pull back from its former hard-line position of pushing amalgam onto American consumers.
Here's what we are seeing in the ADA's latest policy statement on Use of Amalgam as Restorative Material:
The ADA's policy no longer says amalgam does not pose a health hazard — The ADA's policy no longer says that amalgam "does not pose a health hazard." Instead, it merely "recommends that clinicians review the risks and benefits of all restorative options with their patients."
The ADA's policy supports reducing environmental mercury — The ADA at last "supports the globally recognized need to reduce environmental mercury as set forth in the Minamata Convention on Mercury … as a common good."
The ADA's policy backs away from using state dental boards as weapons — The ADA withdraws its long-time policy of openly aiding dental boards in attacking mercury-free dentists. It deletes its written policy of assisting boards with "expert witnesses" in cases involving dentists opposed to amalgam use.
Our campaign is succeeding. The ADA beats a retreat to higher ground — we clearly have them on the run. But the new policy makes clear that this multimillion dollar lobbying machine is continuing its unconscionable fight to keep using this mercury product — especially in the poor, the unaware, and those dependent on government programs like our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and their families.
How You Can Help Bring the EU Amalgam Ban Home!
You can help bring the European amalgam ban home today! First, always choose a mercury-free dentist for your own and your children's dental care. You can find a mercury-free dentist among the resources below:
Dental Amalgam Mercury Solutions (DAMS). Email them here or call 651-644-4572 for an information packet
International Academy of Biological Dentistry and Medicine (IABDM)
International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology (IAOMT)
Second, sign up to receive our emails to get the latest news and action alerts from Consumers for Dental Choice. Just go to our website, www.ToxicTeeth.org, and type your email address into the box in the top right-hand corner and click "subscribe"!
And third, please donate now to Consumers for Dental Choice, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so that Dr. Mercola can match your gift — and maximize your impact! Your $100 gift becomes $200, your $200 gift becomes $400, your $500 gift becomes $1,000, and your $1,000 gift becomes $2,000!
But Dr. Mercola's match offer only runs until August 25, 2024. So please click the button below to donate online.
Or you may mail a check (postmarked by August 27) to:
Consumers for Dental Choice
727 15th St. NW, Suite 701
Washington, DC 20005
With your support during Dr. Mercola's Mercury Awareness Week, together we can bring the European Union amalgam ban home!
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