(Sworn testimony
of R. Baratz before the Florida Dental Board on
amalgam rule, Sept 29, 2001, with review by B. Windham, DAMS technical
consultant)
1. "A
dental license is a privilege and a licensee has an obligation to present
factually correct information to the public. And your duty is to see that
happens." (page 6) R.B.
This is an ironic statement, since it is
clear that much of the information presented here by Dr. Baratz
was not factually correct or supported by Scientific
evidence. B.W.
*****
2.
"And except for a
handful of reports of simple allergies, no patient, anywhere, has ever been
harmed by the materials in a properly mixed and placed amalgam
restoration". (page 7)
This
is not accurate, there are hundreds of peer-reviewed
studies and thousands of documented clinical cases of adverse effects from
mercury from amalgam. Many of them published in dental journals. And it is well documented in the literature
than large numbers of people(many millions) are immune
reactive to mercury, and that immune reactivity commonly causes significant
adverse health effects.
*****
3. "That is about one milligram. The amount of mercury
that might be released from a dental amalgam is a fraction of that, in a day. A fraction of a fraction of that. And that is what all the
controversy, if you want to call it that, is about". (page 7)
Dr.
Baratz apparently is not familiar with the fact that
mercury is extremely toxic so that levels of exposure in milligrams and
micrograms are extremely high and dangerous. Mercury is known to be the most
toxic substance people commonly come in contact with at significant exposure
levels. The EPA drinking water standard
for mercury is 2 parts per billion, much lower than the levels he is
discussing; and it is well documented that the average daily exposure of
someone with several amalgams is more than the ATSDR/EPA guidelines(MRL) for
mercury.
Agency
for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, U.S. Public Health Service, Toxicological Profile for
Mercury , 1999; & Apr 19,1999 Media Advisory, New MRLs
for toxic substances, MRL:elemental mercury
vapor/inhalation/chronic & MRL:
methyl mercury/ oral/acute; & http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/mrls.html
*****
4. "Sodium, if I were to take some sodium metal and drop
it into this glass of water in front of Mr. Nicol
here, all of you would be killed by the explosion." (page
7)
Anyone
with a reasonable background in science knows that this statement is not
true. This experiment is commonly
performed in Chemistry labs.
*****
5. “The point is that dental amalgam does not contain
mercury. It has none.” (page 7)
6. "It contains things that were mixed together which formerly
were mercury and formerly were a bunch of other metals but once we mixed them
together they are no longer that, those separate materials, they are now a new
material we call amalgam." (page 7)
7. "If you detect traces of mercury that are released
from that material, it is because that material has now been decomposed by heat
and by friction to drive it back towards what used to be the ingredient."
(page
7)
5,6,7. This is a very
strange statement for Dr. Baratz to make, as anyone
with a reasonable science background knows that it is not true. As documented by amalgam manufacturers such
as Dentsply, amalgam is about 50% mercury, and the
mercury in amalgam is elemental mercury.
This is well known. All of the
metals in amalgam are divalent cations that do not
form chemical compounds with each other. Also since mercury has a negative
vapor pressure, the mercury in amalgam is constantly vaporizing- resulting in
high levels of mercury in the oral air, saliva, and oral mucosa. The fact that there is oral galvanism between
mixed metals in the mouth is also commonly known, including by dentists and
dental school staff, which results in additional release of mercury into the
body. This is documented in the dental
literature and is known to have effects on some patients. Also commonly resulting in buildups of
mercury in the oral cavity, called amalgam tattoos. The levels are commonly much higher than
Government health guidelines for mercury in office air or drinking water, food,etc.
*****
8. "You often hear people say, Well,
mercury is a deadly poison. Amalgam has mercury therefore you are putting
poison in people’’s mouths. That is fundamentally
false and anyone who says that is not telling the truth. They do not understand
what a poison is. If that is true, then eating sodium chloride is equivalent to
poisoning yourself, and we do it every day." (page 7)
This is also a very strange
statement for a person claiming to have a science background to make. According to U.S. EPA and ATSDR, mercury is
extremely toxic and one of the most toxic substances people commonly come in contact with. All forms of mercury are extremely
toxic. The drinking water standard is 2
parts per billion, much lower than most poisons like arsenic, pesticides,etc. And it is in the top 3 of all toxic
substances causing adverse health effects.
All U.S. Government agencies involved with toxics state that mercury is
extremely toxic. Amalgam is documented
to be the number one source of exposure for most people. Amalgam waste is classified as toxic waste by
EPA. The fact that you put it in
someone’s mouth does not change the fact that mercury from amalgam is extremely
toxic, and an extremely potent poison.
And the level of daily exposure is known to be high, relative to
Government health guidelines.
www.home.earthlink.net/amalg6.html &
Agency for Toxic Substances
and Disease Registry, U.S. Public Health
Service, Toxicological Profile for Mercury , 1999; & Apr
19,1999 Media Advisory, New MRLs for toxic
substances, MRL: elemental mercury
vapor/ inhalation/chronic & MRL:
methyl mercury/ oral/acute; & http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/mrls.html &
ATSDR/EPA Priority List for
1999: Top 20 Hazardous Substances, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services, http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/99list.html
*****
*****
9. "So to say that dental amalgam has mercury in it is
false. It has what used to be mercury."
(page 8)
Dr. Baratz
doesn’t seem to understand that mercury is an element and that approximately
50% of amalgam is mercury. The mercury in amalgam is “mercury”, but even if it
were a chemical compound of mercury, all such are extremely toxic. Amalgam manufacturers and the material data
safety sheets that all dentists see indicate this. Most of the exposure to people from amalgam
is from elemental mercury, though it is rapidly converted in the body to both
inorganic and organic(methyl) mercury. Mercury vapor
has an extremely short half life in the blood, before entering cells and being
converted to other forms. It is documented
that amalgam is the number one source of both inorganic and organic mercury in
most people with amalgam fillings.
*****
10. "I don’’t have one here but I could take a thermometer that
had mercury in it, snap it into this glass and drink it in front of you and not
be harmed. I could sniff it and not be harmed." (page 8)
Again this is very strange
for someone claiming a science background to say.
It is well known that if a
thermometer breaks in a school or building, Government agencies require that
the room be evacuated because of the extreme danger of adverse effects. It is well known that drinking mercury as described
would cause extremely serious effects.
The drinking water standard is 2 parts per billion because of mercury’s
well documented extreme toxicity. To say
one could drink a large amount and not be affected is absurd. And the negative vapor pressure of mercury
which results in mercury exposed to air vaporizing constantly is the reason
that sniffing it would be dangerous and cause adverse effects,
and the reason rooms where a thermometer breaks are evacuated. Very low exposures to mercury are documented
to cause serious effects. Cases where
people were acutely exposed to mercury, such as this suggestion, have
documented serious effects.
www.flcv.com/amalg6.html
*****
11. "The quantities that would be in there would be
equivalent to about the amount of mercury that would go into one amalgam
restoration. That would be about 250 milligrams. To say that is a harmful
substance is false." (page 8)
The average amalgam filling
has about 0.5 grams of mercury(500 milligrams).
And it is well documented in
the literature that this amount of mercury is sufficient to
make all of the bass in a 10 acre lake dangerously toxic
to eat and would require a warning to limit fish consumption. 250 milligrams or 500 milligrams is a hugely
toxic and dangerous amount of mercury.
Dr. Baratz does not appear to be aware of
basic toxicology facts and appears to have not done much research or reading on
these issues.
[Electric Power Research Institute, EPRI Technical Brief:"Mercury in the Environment", 1993; & EPRI Journal, April 1990.; and www.flcv.com/damspr2f.html]
*****
12. "There are case
reports where people have tried to commit suicide by drinking not just the
amount that was in the thermometer, but a pint of liquid mercury. Guess what
happened. Diarrhea. It is not absorbed from the gut.
Even in pure form. " (page 8)
This is a folk tale that is
not true. If Dr. Baratz is going to make such claims,
he should back it up by documentation.
It is well known that mercury is extremely toxic, and this amount of
mercury would have significant adverse health effects. There are cases in the literature of such
instances, and they resulted in significant effects.
Dr. Baratz
appears to consider only acute effects to be important, but mercury’s chronic
long term effects are significant. But
this would also result in acute effects, as well as chronic. And its also well
documented that inorganic mercury is methylated to
methyl mercury in the body which is highly absorbable.
www.flcv.com/amalg6.html &
Heintze et al,“Methylation
of Mercury from dental amalgam and
mercuric chloride by oral Streptococci”.,Scan.
J. Dent. Res. 1983, 91:150‑152:
& Rowland,
Grasso, Davies “The Methylation of Mercuric
Chloride by Human Intestinal Bacteria”. Experientia. Basel 1975 ,31: 1064‑1065
*****
13. "And it is even less well
absorbed in the gut as powered amalgam once amalgam is made." (page 8)
It is well documented in the
scientific and medical literature that the primary mercury exposure from
amalgam both during placement and once in the mouth is to mercury vapor, from
vaporization and oral galvanism in the mouth.
But much of the mercury is rapidly methylated
to methyl mercury by bacteria and yeast, etc. in the body so there is also
significant exposure from methyl mercury.
This is well documented in the medical literature.
and www.flcv.com/damspr12.html
14. "There are allegations that
vapor comes off the surface of a dental restoration,
and indeed a tiny bit does. The amount that comes off is equivalent to the
amount you get every day by breathing the air in this city, by drinking the
water in this city, by eating the food in this city." (page 8)
If Dr. Baratz
wants to make extreme claims in his testimony, he should provide some
documentation. There is a lot of
documentation in the medical literature that
amalgam is the number one source of mercury exposure in most
people with several amalgam fillings, and U.S. government agencies have
officially confirmed this fact.
[U.S. Dept. of Health,
ATSDR, Mercury Profile, 1999; which is the official government source for such
information, along with the World Health Organization, etc.] The level of
exposure is commonly above the ATSDR health guideline level.
See: www.flcv.com/damspr1.html &
*****
15. "Whether you have amalgam or not, you
body has mercury in it. Even the most ardent anti-amalgamist
have virtually the same amount of mercury in their
bodies as you do, because there has not been one patient who has ever been
harmed by it." (page 8)
It is well documented in the medical
literature and by hundreds of thousands of tests by medical labs that the daily
mercury exposure of those with amalgam is on average about 10 times that of
people without amalgam.
Also it is well documented
by hundreds of peer-reviewed medical studies and many thousands of clinical
cases that mercury commonly causes significant adverse health effects. www.flcv.com/indexa.html
*****
16. "Is this material safe and effective? Yes it
is." (page 8)
Mercury is extremely toxic,
and it is well documented that people get significant exposures to mercury from
amalgam. There is no scientific evidence
in the medical literature that the level of exposure that is common from
amalgam is safe, and there is a huge amount of documentation that there are
common adverse health effects. Dr. Baratz should provide some documentation for his extreme
claims that are contrary to common sense since it is well known that mercury is
extremely toxic.
There is also no
documentation that I am aware of that amalgam is more effective than other
current options, unless by effective he means cheaper than other options. The Governments of other countries such as
Sweden and Norway recommended not using amalgm after
major scientific panel studies, and many other countries and states have
warnings.
*****
17. “So I am bringing you the same
simple message that I brought to the FDA in 1991, and to legislative boards in
other states, there is no evidence that amalgam is harmful, and suggesting it
is, or telling people it is, while practicing under a dental license or other
professional license, is wrong. It is unprofessional conduct.” (page 9)
See previous documentation,
there is a huge amount of documentation in the medical and dental literature and from clinical cases
that amalgam commonly causes significant adverse health effects. www.flcv.com/indexa.html
*****
18. “In other words, these quantities are so small that we didn’’t have the instrumentation to measure them. They are
down in the parts per billion or less, range. This is a drop of water in a huge
swimming pool. That’’s how small they are.” (page
10)
There are studies in the
medical literature of 20 years ago that include measurement and documentation
that people get significant mercury exposure from amalgam. There were measurements in oral air, saliva,
stool, etc. that are documented in the literature. And he seems to forget that mercury is
known to be extremely toxic,
the U.S. Government drinking water standard is 2 parts
per billion. The exposures have long
been documented to be much more than this level. There were peer-reviewed studies documenting
adverse health effects from the 1800s and any period thereafter.
*****
19. “There are no toxic substances in
amalgam although there are people who advocate that there are, but there are
not” (page
10)
All of the metals in amalgam
are significantly toxic. Several of them(mercury, copper, tin, silver, etc.) are documented in
the medical literature to be toxic and cause adverse health effects. EPA and ATSDR have toxic profiles for them
that are readily available that document their toxicity. And it is well documented that people get
exposures to all of them from amalgam due to oral galvanism. Organo-tin
compounds are even more toxic than organic(methyl)
mercury.
