Page 60 - Spring2018

Dental As it happens, I had been in an undergradu- the tooth cracks, resulting in the need for a
amalgam’s ate organic chemistry lab the semester before crown and often a root canal. Although this is-
starting dental school. Our entire building was sue of “dimensional stability” —as it pertains
2
convenient evacuated after we experienced a thermometer to amalgam—still gets little attention from the
mixture break, and a HAZMAT (hazardous materials) dental profession, one study has noted that the
of metals team had to come to the building to do the use of amalgam (and gold) restoration materi-
remediation. Thus, the presence of mercury in als dramatically increases the occurrence of
makes it a amalgam rang a few alarm bells for me. longitudinal tooth fractures as compared to
slow-release In addition, I had taken an inorganic resin or porcelain. 3
vehicle for chemistry class the year before commencing Despite questioning the structural impli-
dental school, and in that class, I had come to cations of amalgam, it wasn’t until 1996 that
mercury. This understand what makes a compound or chemi- I definitively reconnected with the question
slow release cal stable or not. In my dental materials class, I of safety and mercury exposure. I put it all to-

allows instantly recognized the fact that the concoction gether and experienced a paradigm shift when
of metals present in amalgam could in no way mercury touched my life personally. That year,
mercury to be stable. When I challenged my professor and my son was diagnosed on the autism spectrum
build up in stated emphatically that “there is no way that and my fifty-six-year-old mother-in-law was

the body. the amalgam material can be stable chemically diagnosed with early-onset dementia. There is
or electrically,” he first asked me what I meant no doubt that when something slaps us in the
and then told me I was wrong. I had a few choice face personally, most of us take another look at
words, telling him that he didn’t know what he our belief system. I did, and what I went on to
was talking about. discover rocked my world.
It didn’t take long for word of my classroom First, I found a network of physicians,
challenge to get to the dean of the dental school, dentists and scientists dedicated to the scientific
who called me in the next morning and told me safety of dental and health care: the International
to sit down, shut up and learn what I needed Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology
to learn. Otherwise, I could rest assured that I (IAOMT), founded in 1984. The motto of this
would not make it through dental school. Reluc- modest group is, “Show me the science.” Dis-
tantly, I did what I needed to do to get through cussing what has come to be known as biologi-
my training—and continued to get indoctrinated cal dentistry, the IAOMT states that biological
that amalgam was safe and stable. dentistry represents “a thought process and an
attitude that can apply to all facets of dental
MORE QUESTIONS practice and to health care in general: to always
After graduation from dental school in May seek the safest, least toxic way to accomplish the
of 1989, I began to practice general, traditional goals of modern dentistry and of contemporary
dentistry. Fortunately, I had kept my rebellious, healthcare.” 4
questioning side, and after about three years, I What I came to deeply realize is that mer-
started having serious reservations about the cury is toxic to every cell in the human body
practice of putting mercury in people’s mouths. and is particularly toxic to the central nervous
My first approach was to attack the fact that system. In fact, mercury is only slightly less
5
amalgam expands and contracts more than tooth toxic than radioactive uranium (plutonium).
structure, which causes catastrophic structural Dental amalgam’s convenient mixture of met-
failure of the tooth over time. This happens als makes it a nice slow-release vehicle for
through a cascading series of events. The tooth, mercury—the only metal that is liquid at room
initially weakened by the decay, is further temperature. This slow release allows mercury
weakened when the dentist cleans out (drills) the to build up in the body, and especially in the
cavity and again undermined with the placement central nervous system and organs, because
of an amalgam filling that, through expansion mercury is attracted to fatty protein-rich tissues.
and contraction, inevitably compromises the Unfortunately, the insidious release of mercury
structural integrity of the tooth. Eventually, from amalgam makes it hard to draw a direct

58 Wise Traditions SPRING 2018