(Posted by Patrick Sullivan Jr.)
On March 22, 2007 I started a poll on the EOHarm Yahoo! group. There were 112 respondents, presumably all mothers of autistic children. Only 10 (8%) had never had a single mercury amalgam.
I went googling for a few minutes to try and find the rate at which the population has amalgams. I think I remember reading that it's 70%. But I couldn't find what I was looking for. Anyone care to do my homework for me? ;-)
I did stumble on this relevant pieces from page 7 of Scientific Case Against Mercury Amalgams (pdf):
Does amalgam use in dentistry really provide the unborn with a prenatal body burden of mercury?
Two more experiments by Vimy, Lorscheider and associates at the University of Calgary Medical School, supported by the IAOMT, provide some insight into the issue of amalgam–derived mercury exposure to the fetus and infant.
In the first, five pregnant ewes, at about 112 days of gestation, were fit with indwelling catheters that allowed the researchers to collect serial samples of maternal and fetal blood, amniotic fluid, plus maternal feces and urine. Each sheep received twelve occlusal amalgam fillings labeled with radioactive 203Hg, as did the sheep in the original study.
The various body fluid samples were collected for sixteen days, after which the sheep were sacrificed at intervals and tissue samples were analyzed for radioactive mercury. They found that the amalgam–derived mercury appeared in maternal and fetal fluids within two days of amalgam placement. Radioactive mercury was found in all post-mortem tissues studied. Tissue concentrations achieved steady state levels after about a month, levels that were maintained throughout the 140 day course of the experiment.
The fact that tissue concentrations did not decline with time, as they would have with an acute, one time dose, implies that there was an ongoing exposure from the radioactive amalgam fillings. As before, the mothers concentrated the most mercury in the kidneys and liver, while the fetuses concentrated it in the liver and pituitary gland. Mercury concentration in the fetal blood was actually higher than in the maternal blood.
In the second study, pregnant ewes received radioactive amalgams as before, and then nursed either their own lambs or foster lambs that had not been exposed to radioactive mercury in the womb. In the womb, the fetal lambs accumulated more mercury in the liver, while after birth the kidneys became the primary site of accumulation. Measurable quantities of radioactive mercury appeared in the tissues of both amalgam–bred lambs and those only nursed by amalgam–bearing ewes.
These studies are consistent with the work of other groups. For example, previous animal studies have shown that when the mother is exposed to Hg0, the form of mercury that is emitted from amalgam, fetal tissues take up more mercury than when the mother is exposed to Hg2+. Drasch, et. al. studied autopsy samples from human still births and early post natal deaths. They found that the mercury concentration in the infants’ kidneys, liver and cerebral cortex correlated significantly with the mother’s amalgam scores. Two labs also found that mercury concentration in human breast milk correlated significantly with the mothers’ amalgam scores.
Mercury amalgams don't get near as much press as thimerosal, but they should.
