Dental amalgams revisited
There’s a new report out that says mercury fillings—the so-called “silver” dental amalagam most of us have in our teeth—may not be so harmful after all. Using x-ray analysis, Graham George of the University of Saskatchewan analyzed the surface of mercury-based fillings that were about 20 years old and compared those to the surface of new amalgam fillings.
The old fillings had lost up to 95 percent of their mercury. What’s more, their mercuric composition had changed. While new fillings contain metallic mercury, the old ones contained primarily beta-mercuric sulfide (metacinnabar), according to the paper George and colleagues published in the American Chemical Society journal, Chemical Research in Toxicology in late October.
Over the past week or so, that paper’s conclusions have been finding their way into the scientific press. So maybe those mercury fillings aren’t so toxic after all, the journalists have been saying. At least, not after they’ve been in your mouth for about 20 years.
The only problem is that the harm scientists have been claiming from amalgam fillings comes from the mercury vapors given off by those fillings, not by the direct action of food or saliva against the fillings themselves. Mercury vapor is what put the “mad” in mad hatters, a nineteenth-century reality independent of the writings of Lewis Carroll. Indeed, the primary reason mercury thermometers have become so rare is that if one breaks, despite the low vapor pressure of mercury, the air of a small room such as a bathroom can easily exceed the acceptable limit of the dangerous fumes, even at room temperature. When mercury is heated, the vapors become far more toxic. What’s more, the lungs provide the most efficient path for absorption of mercury.1 2 3
So while we believe the authors of this article had good intentions, we reject the notion that mercury fillings are not harmful. If after 20 years most of the mercury from those fillings is gone, where do you suppose it went? Probably into your body, a substantial portion of it absorbed through your lungs and digestive tract as inhaled fumes.
- For one of the more bizarre recent accounts of death due to mercury vapor, click here. ↩
- For the damage done to a teen who came across elemental mercury and played with it, here is another story. ↩
- This Time magazine article details how 170 people were exposed to elemental mercury because two teenagers found a large quantity. If you have doubts about the harmful nature of elemental mercury, read this. ↩
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February 7th, 2010 at 7:31 am
February 24th, 2010 at 7:02 pm