Mercury: The Poison in Your Teeth
Excerpts and demonstrations from “How to make your practice mercury-safe: minimizing occupational exposure to mercury at the Dental Office” – produced by Dr. Tom McGuire and Dr. Paul Rubin ©2011
Mercury is the most poisonous, naturally occurring substance on the planet. It is a powerful neurotoxin & damages the immune system and directly or indirectly contributes to and makes worse every health issue you will ever deal with.
Mercury contributes to memory loss, depression, autism and plays a role in heart disease to name but a few. Amalgam silver fillings constantly release toxic mercury vapor much more so and stimulated by anything including such common actions as tooth brushing. This is illustrated in the following demonstration by Dr. Tom McGuire.
The Demonstration
Dr. McGuire takes readings in micrograms of mercury (Hg) per cubic meter (m3) of air (mcg/Hg/m3) of:
- Air above amalgam silver filling
- The un-stimulated filling
- After the tooth is brushed
Mercury is poisonous in extremely small amounts, expressed here in micrograms. There are over 28 million micrograms in an ounce. Just one microgram contains over 3 trillion (3,000,000,000) atoms of mercury. There is no harmless level of mercury!
“So what I’m going to do is I’m going to take a reading of the m3 in the air around the filling and above the filling and get a reading there.
Then I’ll take a reading of the filling and then I’m going to brush it with a soft toothbrush for 10 or 15 seconds and I’ll take a reading and then I’ll see what happens.
So it reads 0.00. it takes about 12 – 15 seconds sampling of the air and then it’s computerizing so it projects it into the air. Okay now, what does it say now? – 0.00
Now here’s the amalgam, has a MOD in it – let’s see what happens to that.
(The Jerome Mercury Vapor analyzer Dr. McGuire is using accurately measures micrograms of mercury per cubic meter of air.) Okay – 6.0, that’s multiplied by 3 trillion – so 6 micrograms per cubic meter.
So let’s give it some brushing here – depending on the brush how hard it is and how much pressure you put on it, that’s all going to affect.
Also high copper amalgam – that will also affect it. By the way, the high copper amalgam releases 50 tones more mercury given the same temperature and stimulation as the older ones - 260.7, that’s micrograms.
(compare to the World Health Organization’s WHO exposure limit of 25 micrograms of mercury per cubic meter of air.)
So you get a pretty good idea now that, the idea of mercury coming off of an amalgam filling even with a common form of stimulation can be significant. Now if you see the way they divide the separate metal – you see on the left side, you have chewing your food – 36 micrograms per cubic meter of air Tooth brushing – 200, tooth grinding – 350, wet polishing – 500 micrograms per cubic meter of air, Dry polishing – 600 and unsafe removal – a 1000”
A telling demonstration – but what do the numbers actually mean? Remember mercury vapor in any quantity is poisonous and has profound psychological & physical effects.
Here are just some of the psychological and emotional symptoms of chronic mercury poisoning:
Anger (fits of), anxiety, apathy, confusion, depression, fear, lack of concentration, lethargy, memory loss, mood swings, nervousness, and slurred speech.
And here are just some of the physical symptoms of chronic mercury poisoning:
Allergies, anemia, asthma, chest congestion, chronic tiredness, chronic coughing, fine tremor, hair loss, headaches, joint aches, muscles aches, irregular heartbeat, ringing in ears, sore throat, vision problems.
In addition, these are some diseases related to chronic mercury poisoning:
ALS, Alzheimer’s, arthritis, autism, candidiasis, chronic fatigue, dementia, diabetes, fibromyalgia, lupus, MS, Parkinson’s, reproductive disorders, thyroid.
As well, this is just a partial list of how mercury relates to reproductive disorders:
Congenial malformalities, infertility (male and female), Learning and development disorders, low birth weight, menstrual cycle dysfunction, menstrual period dysfunction, pregnancy-induced hypertension, spontaneous abortion, stillbirth.
Regardless of a dentist’s beliefs about whether or not mercury amalgam fillings are a health hazard, you have seen that removing them unsafely can generate toxic levels of mercury vapor exposing the dentist, the dental staff and the patient.
The good news is that the safe removal protocols are effective and available and we believe they should be adopted by all dentists.
The bad news is that today only a small percentage of dentists are using these safe removal protocols.
If you are a dentist the new directions dentistry website offers the first most comprehensive DVD course for minimizing occupational exposure to mercury at the dental office and making your practice mercury-safe.
If you are a patient we urge you to let your dentist know about our services and DVD. For more information about the very real health hazards of mercury amalgam and Dr. Tom McGuire’s book – “The poison in your teeth” visit mercurysafedentists.com
There you’ll also find the largest and most comprehensive online directory of mercury-safe dentists. Thank you for watching