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Mercury use in dental amalgam

Sir,

Regarding 'EU set to clash over proposed mercury ban':

It is amazing to see how much effort the EU is making on imports/exports of mercury, waste mercury, the chlor-alkali industry and other issues concerning the EU mercury strategy. 

But these are all minor matters compared with the use of mercury in medicine, mainly in dental amalgam. Amalgam is by far the bigggest source of human mercury intoxication (evidence: WHO Environmental Health Criteria). 

While amalgam victims continue to protest against the use of amalgam in dentistry, the European Parliament and the European Commission are wasting their time on less important issues. 

Your article reads: "Mercury is highly toxic, with a recent study published in January by the 'Stay Healthy, Stop Mercury' campaign concluding that even low-level exposure to it in the womb can cause brain damage in children." 

This is also amazing, because no neurologist has diagnostic tools to measure the brain damage caused by mercury - no diagnostics for adults and no diagnostics for children. If there were such diagnostics, then amalgam could be banned very quickly and the amalgam victims could get treatment. 

The petition committee of the German Federal Parliament stated in 2001: "Further associated side effects [of mercury] like dysfunction of the nervous system and the auto-immune system could not yet be confirmed." Therefore: no problem with mercury and amalgam. Do you see any progress at this point?

Reinhard Lauer

Board member

BBFU (Bundesverband der Beratungsstellen fuer Umweltgifte)

German Federal Association of Information Centres for Environmental Toxins 

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