The IAOMT Scientific Advisory Board is a group of foremost world experts on metals toxicology, who have no vested interest in dentistry or dental products. They have formulated this Position Statement on the use of mercury amalgam in dentistry, which was transmitted to Randall Lutter, PhD, FDA Deputy Commissioner and Sheldon Bradshaw, Esq, FDA Chief Counsel, on June 6, 2007:
International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology
Position Statement of the Scientific Advisory Board
In spite of its long term usage, accumulated scientific evidence now clearly shows that dental amalgam (silver-mercury fillings) expose dentists, dental staff members and dental patients to substantial amounts of mercury in vapor, particulate and other forms. Because chronic exposure to mercury, even in minute amounts, is known to be toxic and poses risks to human health, we must conclude that dental amalgam is not a suitable material for dental restorations.
Due to mercury's inhibiting influence on the growing brain, it is incompatible with current science and experimental knowledge to endorse or condone the use mercury containing fillings - especially in children and women of childbearing age.
Physicians and dentists should, where patients are suffering from pathological states and diseases of unclear causation, consider whether exposure to mercury released from amalgam fillings may be a contributory or exacerbating factor in such adverse health conditions. Governments of other countries (e.g. Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Sweden, and Norway) have placed restrictions and/or issued advisories against the use of mercury in dental fillings - particularly in children and pregnant women. Recently a joint panel of FDA scientific advisors (1) rejected an FDA whitepaper's assurances of the safety of dental amalgam. In light of the above mentioned facts, the International Academy of Oral Medicine & Toxicology and its Scientific Advisory Board (2) urge the dental profession to join the rest of the medical profession and abandon the use of mercury.
References:
(1) Joint Meeting of the Dental Products Panel of the Medical Devices Advisory Committee of the Center for Devices and Radiological Health, and the Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (September 6&7, 2006).
(2) Scientific Advisory Board.
The scientific activities of the IAOMT are overseen by an advisory committee composed of world leaders in biochemistry, toxicology and environmental medicine. They are:
Boyd Haley, PhD, FIAOMT, chairman. Professor and former Chairman of the Department of Chemistry, University of Kentucky; permanent member, NIH Biomedical Sciences, Study Section.
Thomas Burbacher, PhD, Associate Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, Research Affiliate, Center on Human Development and Disability, Director, Infant Primate Research Laboratory, University of Washington Center for Human Development and Disability.
Louis W. Chang, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Pathology, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Founding Director of the Taiwan Division of Environmental Health & Occupational Medicine.
H. Vasken Aposhian, PhD, Professor of Cellular and Molecular Biology, Professor of Pharmacology, University of Arizona, College of Medicine.
Herbert Needleman, MD, Professor of Child Psychiatry and Pediatrics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Dr. Needleman has been the foremost investigator into the problem of lead exposure in children.
Maths Berlin, PhD, Advisor to this Committee. Professor Emeritus of Environmental Medicine, Medical Faculty of Lund, Sweden. Dr. Berlin was the chairman of two World Health Organization conferences on mercury exposure in 1991.
|
Back