Dr. Boyd Haley's website contains an amazing body of scientific evidence regarding the research demonstrating the incredible dangers of mercury from Dental Amalgams/Fillings. (Dr. Haley is the Head of the Chemistry Department at the University of Kentucky...likely not a dumb guy!)
Naturally, the ADA has fought "tooth and nail" against any legislation to ban mercury. (See my post from yesterday on H.R.1680) They defend the use of the most TOXIC non-radioactive metal known to man at every turn? Why? Two reasons that I can see.
First is the litigation potential. If they were ever to acknowledge that the 72 TONS of mercury they place in the mouths of over 100 million Americans every single year was somehow dangerous, the lawsuits would make the Tobacco Wars look like child's play!
Second, putting mercury in people's mouths creates a dental patient with a much higher lifetime value to the dentist. You see, mercury fillings break, degrade, and need constant maintenance over the lifetime of the patient. Mercury fillings often crack teeth because the amalgam readily expands and contracts. It then leads to replacement with even more mercury and also to even more expensive procedures such as bridges and crowns being built in our mouths! Mercury is VERY profitable!!!
Being a businessman I understand this concept as I was taught to think in terms of the "lifetime value of a customer."
There are many dental materials today that are FAR more long lasting and safer than mercury fillings. In 1987 when I had my 14 fillings removed by a dentist who was against the use of mercury fillings, he told me that the porcelain fillings he was putting in might only last 5 or 6 years. 18 years later I still have the same porcelain fillings and they have never been touched again! Recently, a dentist told me they still looked great! But my lifetime value to dentists has been very low!
Better yet, numerous health conditions that I struggled with either simply disappeared or improved when I had the mercury taken out of my mouth. I believe, along with many others, that removing the mercury amalgams removed the primary source of poison that I was getting every time I ate, brushed my teeth, or drank something hot. Remember, mercury is a liquid at room temperature. Your mouth is almost 25 degrees hotter than room temperature!
When you want to understand something that simply makes no sense (like the permanent placement of a poison in peoples' mouths) you should always "follow the money." It is the only way to make some sense out of the insanity that the ADA perpetrates on Americans every single day!!
