Bernard Windham, President of DAMS International
Bernard Windham of Dental Amalgam Mercury Solutions gives his testimony at the Orlando townhall hosted by the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) which is responsible for classifying and regulating dental mercury amalgam fillings.
Mercury Amalgam Fillings Shown to Be Incompatible with Modern Life at FDA Dental Amalgam Forum
At the FDA forum on amalgam safety in Orlando this week, the story of one of the patients at the forum who suffered major harm from dental amalgam, again brought out the common harm caused by use of dental amalgam in dentistry and the incompatibility of amalgam with modern life. Since the 1800s dental amalgam has been known to dental authorities to be an unstable alloy, since mercury is a gas at room temperature and any other form begins to vaporize at 10 degrees Farenheit, with the vapor pressure doubling with every additional increase of 10 degrees Centigrade. (www.flcv.com/AmalHist.html) Additionally, the mixed metals in amalgam in saliva are known to form a battery which induces current in the amalgam and pumps the mercury into the oral cavity of the mouth. This is easily verified with a microamp meter such as those from Radio Shack (www.flcv.com/AmalgamP.html). However with the advent of A/C electricity, the instability of dental amalgam became even worse. Alternating electric current induces electromagnetic fields(EMF) in metals which pump metals into the oral cavity. Biopsy studies and autopsy studies have documented extremely high levels of mercury accumulate in the oral cavity in this way in those who have amalgam fillings, and from there it is carried throughout the body by capillaries and nerves. (www.flcv.com/galv.html)
Dental amalgam has been documented to commonly cause oral problems of many types including gingivitis, oral lichen planus, burning mouth, oral cancer, etc. (www.flcv.com/periodon.html)
But when Barbara Koenig’s doctor chose to treat her oral discomfort with diathermy heat, they didn’t realize that the heat would cause high mercury vapor loss and also result in the fillings pumping high levels of mercury, etc. into her oral cavity. She became aware that her mouth gradually felt very warm, with the feeling reaching the state of feeling like she had a “blowtorch in her mouth”. By the time the device was shut off, she had suffered acute mercury poisoning and had large volumes of toxic metals deposited in her oral cavity, called “amalgam tattoos”. She said that she had so much mercury released that over a considerable period of time it was “bubbling up in her saliva” virtually continuously. She suffered immediate major health problems, that grew over time until they reached partial paralysis as well as having throat and stomach/digestive problems and a constant intense pain, diagnosed by Mayo Clinic as being permanent damage to her trigeminal nerve, caused by the use of Diathermy in an area with dental amalgam. She also consulted the FDA, who agreed with the Mayo Clinic findings and listed oral diathermy as contraindicated in an area with amalgam fillings in the Diathermy use manual.
But the FDA does not appear to have gone far enough, since many electrical and heat devices, including sauna, electric tooth brushes, dental tooth cleaning and polishing equipment, hair dryers, and other appliances that have EMF are documented to cause significant increases in vaporization of mercury from dental amalgam. Due to all of these reasons, people get very high exposures of mercury from dental fillings, with thousands of medical lab tests and Government agency confirmation that amalgam is the largest source of mercury in most people with amalgam fillings or metal crowns over amalgam. (www.flcv.com/damspr1.html ) But due to these large exposures, EPA and Municipal Sewer agencies have found that amalgam is also the largest source of mercury in sewers and sewer sludge, with very high levels of mercury in both. They found a person with several amalgam fillings excretes on average approximately 30 micrograms of mercury into the sewers, a huge level given the extreme toxicity of mercury. www.flcv.com/damspr2.html While the EPA health limit for mercury in water is 2 parts per billion, the level of mercury in sewage sludge is 2 to 3 parts per million. But since sewer plants cannot take mercury out of the sewage, the mercury flows into water bodies and is a significant source of mercury in water bodies, the environment, fish, etc. An amalgam on average has about ½ gram of mercury, which has been documented to be enough to contaminate all fish in a 10 acre lake to dangerous levels. The amount of mercury going into water bodies each year is enough to contaminate all such water bodies to dangerous levels. And over half of Florida water bodies have health warnings for mercury in fish, both freshwater and saltwater. Since all the dentists at the FDA Orlando forum agree that there are now better options than amalgam for fillings, its time to ban or greatly limit amalgam use like other countries with modern health systems do. And to immediately require all dental offices to install amalgam separators.
Bernard Windham, President and Research Director, DAMS International
