Philadelphia Dentists Resist Amalgam Fact Sheet

A proposal for a new fact sheet on dental amalgam, stripped of all mention of mercury and its hazards, was submitted to a February 18 meeting of the Philadelphia Board of Health by the Pennsylvania Dental Association, the Philadelphia County Dental Society and the New Era Dental Society, a group of black dental professionals affiliated with the National Dental Association. The newly proposed fact sheet is based entirely upon the FDA's 2009 final rule on amalgam classification, which stated that amalgam is safe for everyone.

The move to replace the already watered-down mercury warnings in the existing fact sheet is heavily supported by the ADA and the Pennsylvania Dental Association, which has been training dentists to be spokespeople in support of amalgam. At the Board of Health meeting, one of those dentists, Dr. Andrew Mramor, said that he requires parents of the low income children he treats to sign a waiver allowing the use of mercury amalgam, or he refuses to treat them. Several parents have refused to sign after seeing the word "mercury" on the fact sheet. Dr. Mramor added that such parents are unlikely to find another dentist for their children.

Meanwhile, an FDA spokesman has told Freya Koss, head of the Pennsylvania Coalition for Mercury Free Dentistry, that the agency is actively considering rewriting the 2009 amalgam classification rule in response to the Petition for Reconsideration  that was submitted by IAOMT, along with allied groups and individuals, last fall. Stating plainly that the Petition was the "best organized response to an FDA rule in the agency's history," the spokesman acknowledged that our criticisms of methods used to develop the amalgam classification rule were "irrefutable." He recommended that the Philadelphia Health Department hold off on altering the amalgam fact sheet until the review and revision of the rule is complete. No firm timeline for that review has been offered.