What You Should Know About Mercury In Fillings     Since 1996, our office has discontinued any use of "silver" or amalgam fillings. Developed in the early 1800's in England, dental amalgam-a mixture of mercury, silver, tin, zinc, and copper has been highly controversial and disputed among dentists around the world.     Even the term "quack" comes from more than a century old name given to German dentists who placed mercury containing fillings. A lay term for mercury is quicksilver-the German translation is "quack silber".     Today the dental profession is highly polarized on the use of dental amalgam. Many argue that since it has been in use over 150 years, it must be safe.     Dentistry is the last industry in the United States to still utilize mercury. Our office sees mercury as a significant risk factor that our patients can easily eliminate. Its removal is cost effective and many people find significant benefits from having a mercury free mouth. Silver fillings contain 50-60% mercury and 30-35% silver along with smaller amounts of copper, tin, and zinc. In this office we call them "mercury-silver fillings." Mercury is a far more poisonous substance than arsenic or lead. Toxicologists along with the World Health Organization state that no amount of mercury is harmless. The only element more toxic than mercury is uranium. Mercury comes off your fillings as a vapor and over 80% is taken up into the lungs. Human autopsy studies have found a direct relationship between the amount of mercury in the brain and the amount or mercury-silver fillings in the mouth. Established research has shown that mercury-even in small amounts-can damage the brain, heart, lungs, liver, kidney, the thyroid, pituitary, and adrenal glands, as well as blood cells, enzymes, and hormones. It is proven to suppress the immune system. Mercury will pass through the placenta and can affect the developing child. More recent research is linking mercury to Alzheimer's Disease, Lou Gehrig's Disease, and sudden Cardiac Death Syndrome. Mercury-silver fillings have been banned in Canada for use in children, pregnant or nursing mothers. Mercury-silver fillings leak and are unstable. They turn your teeth black and harbor enormous amounts of bacteria. They also expand and often cause tooth breakage. Our goal is to help our patients get healthy and to reduce future treatment to a minimum. After treatment, your risk to mercury will be eliminated with long-term restorations and the levels of bacteria in your mouth will be minimized. Even though our office has not placed mercury-silver fillings since 1996, we remove significant amounts of mercury from our patient's mouths. Our office uses state of the art "scrubbing" purifiers in the air as well as water-filtration to virtually eliminate the mercury coming out or our patient's teeth from polluting our air and water. If we can assist you with any questions, please contact us or visit www.iaomt.org for more information.