Pat Sullivan Blog

Showdown, Moms Against Mercury v FDA: US Ct of App. hears oral argument Mar. 27

(Posted by Patrick Sullivan Jr.)

From Charlie Brown, National Counsel of Consumers for Dental Choice:

Showdown, Moms Against Mercury v. FDA:
US Ct of App. to hear oral argument Mar. 27

Dear friends -- The case of Moms Against Mercury, et al., v. FDA heads to a showdown next Tuesday morning, March 27.  I will argue the case against the government before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Our case, filed April 27, 2006, by 9 petitioners (names below)* charges FDA with illegally allowing the sale of mercury fillings.  For thirty years, FDA has defiantly refused to classify amalgam -- even though this step is required as the legal prerequisite to sale of any implants.  Even the repudiation of its pseudo-science by two FDA Scientific Panels on September 7, 2006 has not deterred FDA, who is making false and deceptive claims to mask the vote of these Panels.

Faced with standing before a federal court, FDA now departs from its role as chief cheerleader for mercury fillings. In its brief, FDA admits, five times, that it does not know if mercury amalgam is safe or unsafe!

This is a breakthrough not thought possible a year ago.  To repeat, FDA now admits that the evidence is “changing,” thus the safety of mercury fillings is not “definitive” and is “the subject of intense disagreement.”  Quotations from FDA’s brief, containing those admissions, are below.**

The question we have put to the Court, then, is:  Since FDA no longer knows, shouldn’t sales of this mercury device be stopped?

FDA’s defense is procedural and technical -- claiming our petitioners don’t have standing, and claiming that the Court lacks jurisdiction. 

If you wish details about attending this public event, write Freya Koss, frekossATaolDOTcom

Charlie Brown, 3/19/07


* The nine petitioners who sued FDA!:  Four organizations: Moms Against Mercury (Amy Carson, Angela Medlin), Connecticut Coalition for Environmental Justice (Mark Mitchell, M.D.), Oregonians for Life (Mary Starrett), and California Citizens for Health Freedom (Frank Cuny);  two state officials: California Dental Board Public Member Kevin J.Biggers, and Arizona State Senator Karen Johnson;  three individuals: Dr. Andy Landerman, Linda Brocato, and Anita Vazquez Tibau.

** FDA’s admissions in its brief to the US Court of Appeals:  “there is a lack of conclusive evidence regarding the health effects of mercury fillings”;  “constantly changing scientific evidence” exists on mercury amalgam;  “complex issues and intense disagreement [exist] about the scientific evidence regarding mercury and its potential health effects”;  “the complexity of the issue and the lack of conclusive scientific evidence on the health effects of dental amalgams”;  “the lack of … definitive scientific evidence.”

Please don't eat the humans

(Posted by Patrick Sullivan Jr.)

LOVE IT!!  :)

I met Mike Adams for the first time about a month ago at a speech he gave in Tucson, AZ.  He told me about this cartoon concept that was coming down the pike then and I loved it.  The concept and execution are classic.

The Smoking Tooth on YouTube

(Posted by Patrick Sullivan Jr.)

My "Things to Blog" folder is stacked with tons of great material (lead in multi-vitamins story, the autism being discussed on The View, etc.), I've just been too busy to get to any of that this week. 

But this is a must see...

Smoking Tooth = Poison Gas.



The producer and narrator of this video is Dr. David Kennedy, DDS retired.  I serve with him on the boards of Consumers for Dental Choice and Jigsaw Health Foundation.  He's been fighting the mercury amalgam (and fluoride) battle for nearly 30 years.  He is a walking encyclopedia of the hundreds (thousands?) of peer-reviewed published studies.  Whenever I ask him a question, his reply to me is usually several pages full of quotations from studies.  Dr. Kennedy is a great man.

YouTube.

FDA’s rogue bureaucracy to face intense scrutiny in ‘07

(Posted by Patrick Sullivan Jr.)

Email from Charlie Brown of Consumers for Dental Choice:

FDA’s rogue bureaucracy to face intense scrutiny in ‘07

As 2007 dawns, the stars are aligning for fundamental changes in how the government regulates (by that I mean fails to regulate) mercury fillings.  Thus much is clear:  the clock has run out for the pro-mercury bureaucrats at FDA’s Center for Devices, a bureau so out of the mainstream the Supreme Court calls it “FDA’s neglected stepchild.”  The Center’s cover-up of the mercury, its refusal to do an environmental impact statement, its decision to allow amalgam sales with no proof of safety, and its arrogant attitude toward its legal duties will all be addressed in different forums in 2007. 

This rogue bureaucracy’s biggest mistake was using a bogus “white paper” to try to strong-arm two scientific panels into acquiescing in their cover-up of the science.  Using a public relations offensive over Labor Day weekend of 2006, FDA’s Center for Devices & Radiological Health announced that THIS mercury is safe -- before the panels even convened!  Stunned at FDA staff’s callous indifference to the human suffering caused by mercury fillings, the real scientists voted 13 to 7 to repudiate the FDA pseudo-scientists.  [this story]  The scientists withstood pressure as well from the array of dental groups who profit from amalgam.

Media reports indicate that with FDA no longer shilling for organized dentistry, individual dentists who still place mercury fear lawsuits -- as well they should.  After the vote of September 7, every dentist in America who continues to place mercury in children and pregnant women -- particularly when miscalling amalgam “silver” -- is on notice of its potentially severe adverse consequences. 

Charles G. Brown, National Counsel
Consumers for Dental Choice
www.toxicteeth.org

PS - As a board member of Consumers for Dental Choice, I reached out to Mike Adams of Newstarget and we talked about getting mercury amalgams on the radar of his 500,000 readers in 2007.  Mike was always aware the mercury amalgams were bad, but had never really looked into it much.  We spent an hour on the phone talking about the documented health and environmental impacts.  He's now VERY gung-ho about it.  So some good things to come in oh-seven!

Mercury from thermometers poison day care kids

(Posted by Patrick Sullivan Jr.)

Marie Flowers of MercuryPoisoned.com points me to a story going on in New Jersey.  Apparently, the Kiddie Kollege day care building used to be a mercury thermometer factory that was never fully cleaned up.  And now, kids like Alexis Davis are showing signs of mercury toxicity:

"Alexis went to Kiddie Kollege for two years. Over those two years her health really deteriorated," she said. "They didn't know what was wrong with her." As she spoke, Davis presented class pictures of her daughter, taken while she was enrolled at Kiddie Kollege. The three pictures taken over the course of two years show the slow paralysis of Alexis' face, with the right side of her face no longer able to smile, Davis suggested.

"You can see her face has no strength; her teeth are rotting; these kids need help," Davis said.

Mercury Activists

(Posted by Patrick Sullivan Jr.)

Charlie Brown from Consumers for Dental Choice sent the following email.  As I read through it, I was reminded again of just how long this fight to abolish mercury from dentistry has been going on.  Each recipient is highly deserving of our appreciation.  The "crack in the damn" earlier this summer is due to each of these individuals hard work, as well as the efforts of many, MANY others. 

    Consumers for Dental Choice proudly honors six individuals for their outstanding service to the cause of abolishing mercury fillings.  Each has been sent a plaque in recognition of her/his achievements.

    Maz Levy, Lifetime Achievement Award.  Maz earned this award for her pioneering media and communications work; she filmed the early California battles, had perhaps the first TV program and web site, and testified eloquently and often.  I am saddened to report that Maz Levy received the prize posthumously; it was presented to her daughter Nova Katz.

    Linda Brocato, Volunteer of the Year.  A tireless advocate for well over a decade, Linda is one of the plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit filed in April v. FDA to ban mercury fillings, secured press attention for the lawsuit, and served as the leadoff witness to the FDA scientific panels in the historic Sept. 6 - 7 hearings. 

    Two folks were jointly awarded the special prize of “Advocate of the Decade”; this duo, working from opposite coasts, transformed our movement in 2001 and never let up since.

    Anita Vazquez Tibau, Advocate of the Decade.  In 2001 Anita energized the movement to ban mercury fillings, launching the campaign to shut down the abysmal Dental Board of California, and was lead plaintiff suing the ADA.  That work caused all boards to start backing off enforcing the illegal ADA gag rule, and launched a three-year effort resulting in enforcing California’s Watson Law.

    Freya Koss, Advocate of the Decade.  More than anyone, Freya has worked at every level of government, in every region, and with every constituency – showing leadership, determination, and perseverance – that is turning the tide against mercury fillings.  She was lead plaintiff suing NIH, and founded the PA Coalition Against Mercury-free Dentistry.

Two folks were jointly awarded the prize of “Public Official of the Year”:

    Richard Butcher, Public Official of the Year.  As Legislative Assistant to Congresswoman Watson, Richard became Capitol Hill’s authority on the mercury amalgam issue, arranging legislative hearings, cracking the iron wall created by NIH and FDA regulators, and providing hope nationwide that mercury amalgam will be banned. 

   

Mike Fleming, D.D.S., Public Official of the Year.  As the first-even advocate of mercury-free dentistry to serve on FDA’s Dental Products Panel, Dr. Mike spearheaded the vote that became the first federal rejection of mercury fillings.  His actions serve as a shot across the bow that mercury fillings will cease to exist.

Does TD-DMPS trans the dermal? (UPDATE 2)

(Posted by Patrick Sullivan Jr.)

Autism Diva (I shudder to link) found this detailed review of a recent DAN! conference by Pramila about TD-DMPS not being TD because it doesn't trans the dermal.  The quote was:

This is from a blog belonging to a mom who does the DAN! biomedical stuff to her son:

There was an interesting detox panel discussion.  Dr Quig [Vice President, Scientific Support for Doctor’s Data Inc. lab] who sees zillion Doctors Data reports had some interesting comments: like TD-DMPS is not transdermal because it doesn't trans the dermal! Suppositories and IV are generally more effective. He mentioned that none of these really penetrate the blood brain barrier. They bind to extra-cellular toxins and draw them out by creating a concentration gradient. He also mentioned that CaEDTA is very effective for lead. He emphasized the need for pre and post provocation measurements. The doctors mentioned the protocols for IVs they use in their practices.

(Emphasis, photo, and bracketed words added.)

(My additional bold + italics emphasis on "Suppositories and IV are generally more effective." which you will see come in to play in a moment.)

I emailed Dr. Buttar on Thursday 10/26 to see if he had seen this?  He said I was the second person to send him a link and he was pretty fired up about it. 

To paraphrase his reply, "It is illogical for Dr. Quig to say this.  How could the head PhD for Doctors Data see thousands of his own company's tests showing heavy metals being excreted with TD-DMPS as the chelating agent say that TD-DMPS does not trans the dermal?  Logic would dictate that if TD-DMPS does not cross the skin, but the provocation tests show excretion of heavy metals while non-provocation tests are negative, then the tests themselves are wrong! Quite an odd thing for a VP of DoctorsData to say about his own company."

Yeah.  Makes sense to me. 

So my reply to Dr. Buttar was, "Ok, then why the heck would Dr. Quig say that?  There's got be a reasonable explanation or a miscommunication."

And of course, there is.

Dr. Buttar received an email and phone call Tuesday 10/31 from Darrell Hickok, President and CEO of DoctorsData, with an extremely sincere "we are so sorry for the confusion that we've caused and we'll do whatever we can to correct the mistaken impression we've made about TD-DMPS."

So what's the explanation?  Dr. Quig was merely saying that TD-DMPS is not good for challenge testing, something that Dr. Buttar fully agrees with.  TD-DMPS is a therapeutic chelator that has the advantage of being able to remove metals slowly.  But it's the least effective for challenge tests.  IV is preferred method for challenge testing.

So will Camille Clark the Autism Diva update her post?

(Sidenote)

UPDATE 1: From Dr. Buttar, "I would appreciate it if you could add a clarification.  I would like for you to mention that in my protocol that was updated in Dec 2004, I clearly stated that TD-DMPS was the least effective challenging version of DMPS.  However, based on the fact that even "Karen" (the patient example I used in front of Congress, the one that helped me figure out what was going on) did NOT respond to IV DMPS challenge testing until repetitively being provoked.  The issue of the challenge is less important to me now than understanding that these people can NOT get rid of metals, especially mercury.  So even though the TD-DMPS is not a good challenging agent, I'm only looking to see a greater yield in subsequent challenges compared to the base line challenge.  That's it.  Yes, IV DMPS gives greater baselines and even great subsequent challenges, and we use that for kids older than 7, and have done so since 2001.  But for the younger kids, we have used TD-DMPS since 2002 and we're ONLY looking for a greater level of mercury on subsequent challenge testing compared with the baseline challenge testing."

UPDATE 2: Dr. Buttar emails another slight clarification, but the nuance is important.  Paraphrasing several emails, "TD-DMPS is still effective for challenge testing as clinical results using DoctorsData tests have clearly shown.  It's just not as effective as IV-DMPS for SCREENING purposes, especially in non-excretors."

The End of Mercury Fillings?

Here is a great post at the Huffington Post entitled "The Beginning of the End of Mercury in Dentistry."

I applaud Rep. Diane Watson (D) for her courageous and longtime stance against the ADA and FDA and their insistence that this incredibly stupid and untested use of mercury in humans was safe.  It is NOT safe.  At least it has never been proven safe by either the ADA or the FDA. 

Someday the use of mercury in dentistry will end just like the use of Asbestos ended.  Imagine though if the same approach used for Asbestos was applied to Mercury Fillings.  Laws were passed making it necessary to remove Asbestos from the buildings that contained it.  Yikes!! 

Removing amalgams from the mouths of over 70% of the entire population of America (200+ million people)  would be quite a task.  Especially if dentists have to do it right.  (You can't just drill the damn stuff out!!  You will make tens of millions even more poisoned and sick.)  And WHO is going to pay for it??  The ADA?  The US taxpayers?

Would it improve the health of America?  Absolutely!!  Even with the small sample group that Jigsaw Foundation has, we are seeing that getting mercury amalgams can dramatically effect the health of many.   If you can, please donate to the Foundation so that we can help more very sick people get started on the road to health by removing this terrible poison!

A new low in Autism/Mercury debates?

(Posted by Patrick Sullivan Jr.)

Has YouTube allowed us to reach a new low in the autism/mercury debate? 

Kevin Leitch, who I have verbally sparred with from time to time but generally consider to be a good chap, has posted a video on YouTube that reminds me of a political campaign commercial.  You know the ones that we all hate?  Where politicians use out of context quotes, make ridiculous assumptions, all against a backdrop of "uglifying" special effects and ominous background music to smear their opponents and scare voters into voting for Mr. Sunshine.  96% of Amercians hate these ads*, so much so that Congress enacted (stupid) legislation to restrict free speech.  Not that that has cleaned up political campaigns.

I'm saddened that we come down to a sound bite war, but it always does.  And I'm sure we'll start seeing "political ads" coming from my side of the river soon enough.  Too bad.

In fairness Kev, your first video post was a really touching and positive video about your daughter.

* I made this stat up.  I don't know how many Americans hate these political ads, but I sure don't know any that do other than the creative firms getting paid to produce them, the media placement firms getting paid to buy airtime, and the TV stations selling the time.  And their can't be more than 4% of Americans in any of those jobs.

Health Advisors reject FDA's claim that mercury is safe (UPDATED)

(Posted by Patrick Sullivan Jr.)

As far as I can tell, this is good news:

FDA at odds over safety of mercury fillings
Health advisers reject federal report, say more study is needed

Updated: 4:55 p.m. MT Sept 7, 2006

WASHINGTON - Government health advisers rejected a federal report that concluded dental fillings used by millions of patients are safe, saying further study of the mercury-laden amalgam is needed.

A joint panel of Food and Drug Administration advisers did not declare the so-called “silver fillings” unsafe. But in a 13-7 vote Thursday, the advisers said the federal report didn’t objectively and clearly present the current state of knowledge about the fillings.

In a second 13-7 vote, the panelists said the report’s conclusions about safety weren’t reasonable, given the quantity and quality of information currently available.

This news even made Brian Williams' Nightly News cast, which is fantastic!  I'm ecstatic any time mercury amalgams (aka. "silver fillings") are mentioned on the news.  Sends people to google!

Considering we were all probably secretly setting ourselves up for another major disappointment in the war against mercury amalgams, I think this news from the 2 day FDA conference really might be a sign real progress, slow though it may be.  I'm sure I'll be getting an email update from Charlie Brown, National Counsel of Consumers for Dental Choice very soon.

UPDATE: Pat is out in Florida today at the IAOMT meeting representing the Jigsaw Health Foundation.  He's been talking with the "celebrities" from our side of the mercury controversy -- Boyd Haley, Bernie Wyndham, Freya Koss, Bob Reeves, Russell Blaylock, etc -- and every single person there is ecstatic and shocked at what has happened at these meetings.  As previously reported, everyone had the feeling that the fix was in.  Sure I'll be hearing from Charlie soon as well.

Finally, a crack in the damn.