This study examined whether mercury exposure is associated with periodontitis. The results suggest that mercury exposure had an independent association with periodontitis. Males with high mercury levels had a 50.0% higher probability of having periodontitis than females with normal mercury levels. High body-burden mercury in males might be a contributory factor linked with periodontitis.

Dentists have been polluting the environment with dental mercury amalgam waste for over 100 years. All the while oblivious to the fact they were contaminating the environment with mercury or denying they were the most significant source or mercury pollution.

The International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology ( IAOMT ) is a network of dentists, physicians and medical researchers working together to obtain information concerning the latest interdisciplinary scientific research. We do not just study dentistry - our lecturers are drawn from the field of medicine, physiology, toxicology, chemistry, biochemistry, risk and exposure assessment, materials science, immunology, microbiology, pharmacology, epidemiology, cardiology, neurology, nutrition and other fields of science.

Injured consumer Freya Koss discovered that she had been misdiagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, Lupus and Myasthenia Gravis in March 1998 after having an amalgam filling drilled out and replaced with a new one. She quickly learned that the sudden onset of double vision and drooping eyelids resulted from acute mercury exposure during the dental filling procedure only seven days before. She also learned that silver fillings were actually 50% mercury, a fact her dentist had never told her. Within weeks she had lost her equilibrium, had difficulty walking and developed swollen mandibular glands, severe head pain and worsening eyesight. She found a dentist to safely remove her mercury fillings and worked with an alternative doctor to naturally detox the mercury out of her body. While the intensity of many of her symptoms decline, which was proof to her that the mercury had been the culprit, she still has neurological symptoms, the double vision and drooping eyelid and I still have autoimmune titers and elevated rheumatoid factor.

One argument pro-amalgamist use when trying to downplay the exposure to mercury from dental amalgam fillings is to say that there is more mercury exposure from a tuna fish sandwich compared to that from dental mercury fillings. So we decided to examine the merits of that argument by comparing mercury levels from a 5 oz. can of tuna to the many various exposure levels from that of dental amalgam on different age groups through out the U.S.A.

No longer can the dental profession ignore the problem of mercury contamination in the dental office. It is the moral responsibility that the dentist protect himself and his employees from any source that may be injurious to either his own physical well being or that of auxiliary personnel. It is also a legal responsibility under the enactment of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970.

CONSUMER ALERT ! Silver fillings, otherwise known as amalgam fillings are made of 50% elemental mercury and constantly release toxic mercury vapor of which 80% is absorbed by the lungs and then distributed through out the body. Amalgam fillings are still widely used, although safe, durable and comparative cost alternatives exist.