Karen Palmer, Poisoned Dental Assistant
As a dental assistant, I handled mercury every day for years, until two years ago when I was diagnosed with heavy metal mercury poisoning. I am disabled and can no longer work due to the neurological damage from occupational exposure to mercury. I am still numb on the entire left side of my body. What a false sense of security all of those years having been told that wearing a paper mask would protect me from mercury vapors! After the fact, I had to learn on my own about the toxicity of mercury inhalation and the health risks from working with amalgam fillings.
Where and when were all of the continuing education courses to warn us of the dangers? My former boss is still in denial of all that has happened to me and continues to place amalgam every day. He thinks I've been misdiagnosed and still haven't found the real cause to all of my problems. He worships the ADA and thinks he is protected from any backlash for lawsuits because he's a longstanding member and they maintain it's safe unless you are allergic. Little does he know that the ADA threw the dentists to the dogs when they claimed in the Tolhurst vs. ADA lawsuit, that they weren’t responsible for a consumer’s injuries from amalgam fillings because it was the dentist who mixed them, not the ADA.
What I have is no allergy. It is criminal that the FDA and ADA have been permitted to cover up and mislead the public and those in the dental profession. How many more thousands of people have to suffer before mercury is banned from dental use? Although the FDA parrots the Center for Disease Control’s claim that only 50 adverse reports have been received since August 2006, the FDA has received more than 2,000 public submissions relating illnesses associated with mercury fillings.
It is felonious that people are not given accurate information so that they are able to make informed decisions about their dental care.
As a Pennsylvania resident, I can tell you that it has been one of the worst states in offering information to those working in the field and to consumers. I understand however, that Representative Daylin Leach has written a draft proposal for a bill which will call for mandated informed consent.
As crazy as it sounds, Oprah Winfrey is more successive and effective in reaching more than 40 million viewers about issues which affect the quality of life of every American. How is it that our federal government has been permitted to keep this from public knowledge?
I wrote to the FDA on August 21, 2006 and have received no response.
DON’T I COUNT?
I was diagnosed with heavy metal toxicity for mercury and lead in May of '03. After a full year of testing, I was told at one point that I had MS, or multiple sclerosis], because of the sensory disturbances.
Neurotoxicity and toxic neuropathy is no allergy as the ADA would like us to believe. I gave the best years of my life in a profession as a dental assistant, taking all of the precautions with gloves and masks and glasses, only to learn that the mercury vapor goes right through it.
Optimal ventilation is so key, or so I've come to learn, not minimal, which is what most offices have.
Patients should be given the information on the MSDS sheets [Materials Safety Data Sheets]. The doctors that still insist on using amalgam silver mercury fillings because the ADA still says it's safe are causing great harm to themselves, staff and patients.
Many months of chelation have lowered my toxic levels, thank God, and I am so encouraged. All of the paresthesia, neuropathy, and the chronic fatigue I continue to endure. What is it going to take for all involved to wake up?
Nobody wants to be held accountable for all of the damage that has been done and allowed to occur and continues to go on. I had silver fillings in my teeth. My former employer said my levels didn't come from my mouth. Afraid of backlash, he still continues to place the mercury restorations.
Do you see and hear how huge of a crisis this is at hand? People and the environment are being ruined. Please make it stop, starting with the ADA!
There are other safer materials to use, but not as easy to place and not as quick, and [they are] more costly. The dental insurance companies –
The insurance companies will only pay for the least expensive fillngs and so the doctors are, in effect, letting the insurance [companies] dictate treatment, which they claim to never do. It’s no wonder this can of worms stays unopened to the public.
The deception that is allowed to continue is nothing short of criminal. Mercury is a neurotoxin, a brain poison that does not belong in any form, whether if be ethyl, methyl, organic or inorganic. There is no safe amount in the human body, or in the fish that we can no longer eat, or in the vaccines that are supposed to protect us.
MERCURY IS MERCURY IS MERCURY!!
It's in the air. It's in the water. It's in the ground. Placing mercury directly into the mouth two inches from the brain is ludicrous beyond reason. The ADA argument that it's safe because it's been used for more than 100 years holds no ground. Its an adage proven to be scientifically untrue.
Karen Palmer
Dental Assistant
Pennsylvania
For years I've read news stories about dental mercury amalgam fillings that failed to ask vital follow up questions for one to form a better understanding of the true risks involved with exposure to mercury fillings. Rarely was a toxicologist, neurologist or bio-chemist interviewed. Instead, the stories would always give dentists such prominence when promoting the safety of a substance of which they knew nothing about, all while never acknowleding the much lower levels of mercury at which our government has removed other products from the market. So now I'm doing what I can to help raise awareness of the many dangerous aspects of dental mercury fillings.
What began with debilitating fatigue, grew to accompany insomnia, blurred vision, painful sinus headaches, extreme allergies (to everything), food intolerances, candida, never-ending chronic infections, exhaustion, a consistent feeling of being tired yet wired, and hypo-thyroid issues. Everything became incredibly overwhelming. Darkness clouded over me like a shadow of death; I became depressed, anxious, and frustrated. I had gone mad, and my life had fallen apart. I was living in a bubble, and a normal existence seemed like an impossible dream.
Rebecca Lee's eight mercury filling removals sent her health into a tailspin. Read on as she tells of her health hegira (a journey, especially when undertaken to escape from a dangerous or undesirable situation).
In 2005, I received 7 amalgam fillings and afterwards saw my health spiral downward. It wouldn't be until years later that I would pin-point the destruction of my health to this event. I remember shortly after that dental appointment, I became ill routinely. My mother said to me "You haven't been well since you went to that dentist" - And that always stuck in the back of my mind.
My name is Stacy Case. I am a mom, wife, believer, journalist and a fighter. In 2008, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. All of my neurological symptoms started right after I had my silver fillings removed and replaced with more silver fillings. I later learned each filling is made of 50% MERCURY!
Flight attendant Denise Knight shares her story of extreme mercury toxicity from unsafe amalgam removal.
Looking back it's hard to believe that I didn't figure things out sooner. I was perfectly placed to know exactly what was going on. I was conscious about toxins of all kinds and took supplements to keep myself healthy. And yet, when I fell ill with mysterious symptoms eight months after I got my amalgam fillings removed, I had no idea that this could be caused by mercury.
Veterinarian Hanne Koplev suffered for years from possible heavy metal induced Parkinson's Disease
12 years ago I went to the dentist. Immediately, I notice I could not hear to well. I was tested, 40% hearing in right ear, 60% hearing in left ear. I received implant hearing implant in my left ear. My vision was blurry. I received my first pair glasses. I started stuttering, then my foot was hurting.
This is the account of how my wife was affected by mercury poisoning: It started with symptoms ranging from unexplained anxiety, palpitations, struggling to breathe, light headedness and in the final stages of her illness, pins and needless over her body. Her arms and legs became very weak and she would frequently feel as if she were going to pass out.
Plagued with allergies, vitiligo, and Hashimoto’s thyroid, I attended a medical lecture featuring a panel of doctors, one of whom spoke about autoimmune diseases and offered a warning that would change my life. “If you are in your thirties and forties and have been suffering from autoimmune diseases,” he said, “it may be connected to the amalgam fillings in your mouth.”
I suspected my health was being impacted by my dental amalgams but dismissed the idea as I trusted the scientific integrity of the dental and medical community. I assumed the anti-amalgam community to be unscientific alarmist. I expected to find little or no scientific work on the subject, but was shocked to find hundreds of peer reviewed studies.
In 2007, I was training rigorously for the 2008 U. S. Women's Marathon Olympic Trials when my health took a down turn. My training abruptly ended as I began experiencing neurological symptoms, gastrointestinal distress and major fatigue.Lucily, I was able to pinpoint the underlying cause, mercury toxicity.
I am a survivor of mercury poisoning which stemmed from having 16 mercury dental amalgam fillings by the time I was 24 years old. I've suffered from a number of neurological issue, including: depression, panic attacks, social anxiety disorder, stuttering and heart palpitations. I reached a point in my life where I wanted god himself to take my life and I wanted to die.
Thanks to Champus (federally-funded health program for military dependents) I ended up w/ 7 fillings that completely cover the chewing surface when I was 10 which caused immediate horrendous headache / toothache / earaches plus hyper-sensitivity to cold that persists to this day.