Talk:Dental amalgam controversy/Archive 5

More sources for the regulatory controversy in the US

 * FDA Issues Final Regulation on Dental Amalgam —Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.76.90.106 (talk) 04:59, 17 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Added link to article gioto (talk) 01:24, 13 September 2009 (UTC)


 * The Mercury Mischief: As Obama Warns of Hazards, The FDA Approves Mercury Dental Fillings MaxPont (talk) 08:29, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

broken links
This link is broken: ^ US FDA/CDRH: Consumer Information - Questions and Answers on Dental Amalgam —Preceding unsigned comment added by Talgalili (talk • contribs) 22:01, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Re-edited the article
I reorganized the paragraphs and added much needed citations.

I also added a yet to be clinical trial. I hope someone (maybe me) will update the text when the results will come in.

I wish to explain why I gave so much room for the header "clinical trial" in this article. The reason is because clinical trials are THE golden standard in evidence based medicine. In such cases as this article - this is the number one thing to look at.

Talgalili (talk) 08:07, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Does anyone know the effect of putting caps on teeth with large amalgam fillings. Does this push the outgassing of mercury into the tooth root and gums. Recently I had Birketts lymphoma above the teeth — Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.70.59.102 (talk) 00:34, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Banning Mercury Amalgam in the United States
Banning Mercury Amalgam in the United States, fda.gov — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.237.156.57 (talk) 09:17, 13 October 2011 (UTC) FDA agrees to amalgam announcement this year. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.237.156.57 (talk) 09:44, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Not having this article highlighted in the article amounts to intellectual negligence. There is more information in this one talk page submittal than the entire Wikipedia has for this subject. I suggest that all wiki articles just point to this one fda message and erase the rest of their content. 24.128.186.53 (talk) 16:47, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Inaccurate representation of sources
Checked one source, see Talk:Amalgam_(dentistry)#Controversy_section WHO figures are presented as related to worldwide emissions, contrary to the source.
 * "The WHO reports that mercury from amalgam and laboratory devices accounts for 53% of total mercury emissions" refers to the UK emissions.
 * "the release of mercury into the public sewer system, where dental amalgams contribute one-third of the mercury waste" an estimate from Environment Canada, I assume about Canada's sewer system. DS Belgium (talk) 02:33, 17 October 2011 (UTC)


 * It's technically ambiguous without looking at the underlying sources. The WHO article is not clearly written. It could be that the regional organizations are talking about global emissions. For example, the 53% statistic comes from the following sentence: "Together, mercury contained in dental amalgam and in laboratory and medical devices, account for about 53% of the total mercury emissions". With that said, I agree with you that these are likely to be regionally-specific estimates and therefore it would be better to revise the text - which you are free to do. It would be nice to have a global estimate but the regional estimates give an approximate idea for developed nations. II  | (t - c) 03:28, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The numbers don't add up globally, with 84% of emissions coming from power plants, gold mines and metal production. Mercury (element)
 * Representation of other sources may be problematic as well: the ban on amalgam in Sweden, Norway and Denmark for example: based on a jan 3 2008 press release. This part is not mentioned in the article: Exceptions to use amalgam may be granted for a certain period after the ban, if dentists apply for it.
 * Press releases about bans in the future are not hard evidence since dates can be postponed, see these three about a Swedish ban:
 * The use of amalgam will be totally banned for children and adolescents up to the age of 19 by 1 July 1995 at the latest and for adults by 1997. source
 * The Government today decided to introduce a blanket ban on mercury. The ban means that the use of dental amalgam in fillings will cease and that it will no longer be permitted to place products containing mercury on the Swedish market. The new regulations enter into force on 1 June 2009. source
 * As from 1 June 2009, its use in children and teenagers has been entirely banned, but amalgam can still be used in adult patients within hospital dental care until 2012, on condition that the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare be notified before treatment. source
 * If it's still allowed, it's not banned. 94 references left to check... DS Belgium (talk) 05:05, 17 October 2011 (UTC)


 * It doesn't surprise me that there a lot of weaknesses in the article - it's received a minimal amount of attention and I just hurriedly reorganized what was already in the article a while back. I look forward to your improvements. According to Pirrone's Global mercury emissions to the atmosphere from anthropogenic and natural sources (2010), amalgam is about 8% of the demand. Atmospheric emissions such as those focused on by Pirrone are probably low while emissions directly to the water are probably relatively high, especially in regions like the U.S. where there aren't (as far as I know) federal statutes regulating its release. Hylander et al's High mercury emissions from dental clinics despite amalgam separators (2006) is a potential source, but not openly-accessible. The environmental effects of dental amalgam (2000) is also an interesting start, although since it is written by undergrads supervised by a dentist it is really not an ideal env science source. II  | (t - c) 06:01, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Tell you the truth, I'm much better at finding faults than I am at correcting them. A few hours writing, searching, changing and finally not posting is how it usually turns out. Anyone expecting major (or minor) contributions to articles on my part will likely be disappointed. Criticise and move on is more my style, I'm afraid. ...  :-( DS Belgium (talk) 16:52, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Use of μ symbol instead of "micro"
The average user does not know what the symbol μ means. I believe we should change "μg" to "microgram" for immediate clarity. Wikipedia's convention is to use the more common name when selecting the name of an article, and the same should apply when selecting the terminology. The Manual of Style recommends to "minimize jargon, or at least explain it".

On the other hand, if you insist on using the symbol rather than the word, you would do well to at least move the explanation-- which before my edit appeared once, buried several sections into the article-- to the beginning of the article, rather than merely thoughtlessly reverting my edit. --Mr. Billion (talk) 13:49, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
 * How do you know that the average user doesn't know the mu symbol? I'd think that the average user does, assuming the average user has taken high school chemistry or equivalent, but even if they don't know...welcome to a place where you can learn something!  All they have to do is click a wikilink if they don't know the symbol.  Since the manual of style doesn't cover this specific situation, it should probably be dealt with on the MOS talk page.  With taht said, I do most of my editing on science articles and it's standard convention to use µg when applicable; I couldn't say for all of WP but that's my general experience.  I don't think it needs to be explained in the article either because it's unnecessary information that's only a click away for those who don't know.   S Æ don talk  19:25, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I've started a discussion here S Æ don talk  19:33, 23 April 2012 (UTC)


 * JHunter's edit to spell it out on the first occurrence and then use the symbol in subsequent instances is pretty satisfactory. I think it maximizes readability for the general public.  Thanks! --72.205.253.49 (talk) 05:30, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Amalgam Causes Genetic Behavior Defects in Boys: Study
"Modification of neurobehavioral effects of mercury by a genetic polymorphism of coproporphyrinogen oxidase in children"

"Five hundred seven children, 8–12 years of age at baseline, participated in a clinical trial to evaluate the neurobehavioral effects of Hg fromdental amalgam tooth fillings in children" http://iaomt.guiadmin.com/wp-content/uploads/Woods-JS-et-al-2012-Modification-neurobehavioral-effects-of-mercury-by-CPOX4-in-children_Neurotox-Teratology.pdf

"Amalgam Causes Genetic Behavior Defects in Boys: Study" http://www.mddionline.com/article/amalgam-causes-genetic-behavior-defects-boys-study --84.1.198.213 (talk) 16:41, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Lipophilicity/Partition Coefficient Issue And mechanism for how Amalgam-level mercury exposure can damage Specific Cognitive Abilities
The archives to this article are quite substantial, reflecting (for instance) the complexities of determining whether low levels of mercury leeching (of the order of “from 1-3 micrograms (µg) per day (FDA) up to 27 µg/day (Patterson)” according to the article) are capable of interfering and/or damaging the complex operation of neurons (brain-cells). Some of the following comments seem worthy:

1) The article DOES explain how high levels of mercury can have a negative effect on human health BUT DOES NOT indicate a biochemical mechanism for how Mercury amalgam leeching into the human body can have negative effects. In particular, there is the work of a team at the University of Calgary which has indicated that (purportedly) even the low concentrations of mercury found in amalgam can interfere with the microtublin of neurons in a particular way. Has anyone done a study to determine whether the “low-level” structural interference in neuronal mechanisms that occur when microtubulin formation/structure is damaged by very-low-level mercury presence does, indeed, have a predictable effect upon cognitive functions.  (If you could predict which specific cognitive functions would be most negatively affected by  very-low-level mercury presence, then this would make it easier to demonstrate epidemiologically that mercury amalgam does have negative cognitive effects and those sub-populations with mercury amalgam fillings ought to perform worse than the “control population” of non-mercury filling patients). Of course, this ignores confounding factors like whether people come from inner city areas which are likely to have more pollutants and a long history of industrial contamination, etc... which might affect cognitive abilities in other ways, social stratification is also another possible confounding statistic in the case of testing those from inner-city areas.

2) In the case of methylmercury, the route to bioaccumulation seems to be something which is widely recognised. However, what of elemental mercury (which, presumably, is the type most likely to leech from fillings?). In particular, does elemental mercury have a greater or lower partition coefficient (or, to use the modern terms, "partition constant", "partition ratio", or "distribution ratio") when considering lipid acids versus water (and also considering any relatively immiscible lipids acids).  I mention this because, if Mercury does have a great lipophilicity, or is hydrophobic in the form of aggregated clusters which might be likely to leech from Human teeth, then this ought to mean that certain parts of the nervous system and brain are more vulnerable to interference due to mercury accumulation than are others (this is for two reasons : one functional, that mercury is likely to interfere with certain parts of the brain more due to the fact that it interferes in a specific function of the neurons, and the other locational, that the mercury is likely to accumulate, due to lipophilicity reasons, in certain parts of the brain which are constituted predominantly from those types of lipids and fatty acids – it occurs to me that the ease with which Mercury might transfer from one part of the brain/nervous system could be considered an additional “transportability” factor, but I will ignore this).

3) Related to the above, does this mean that the pre-frontal cortex is more or less likely than the hippocampus to be affected by Mercury?

4) The article mentions NOWHERE, the work of the University of Calgary team, which I feel to be a shame which adds to the overall weaknesses of the article, not enough in the way of quantitative indication of how low levels of mercury can have a large effect on cognition AND the lack of indication (though not in the literature) of biochemical mechanisms that can explain how such low levels of mercury (as realistically attainable via amalgam filling presence)can have a real effect on the brain.

5) Unrelated to above, fossil fuel power stations (according to some sources) increase mercury exposure in the general population as such fuels contain (at least trace) levels of mercury compounds which are definitely vapour into the atmosphere. I hope someone might be able to respond to some of my points.

AnInformedDude (talk) 03:54, 3 October 2012 (UTC)