The FDA agency recently denied three petitions seeking to ban mercury-based dental amalgams, which some studies have linked to kidney damage and neurological disabilities and diseases.
After another of its customary multi-year stalls on politically fraught issues, FDA in January substantially denied three five-year-old petitions seeking to rid American dentistry of mercury-based dental amalgams that have been scientifically linked to kidney damage and neurological disabilities and diseases like multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s.
The agency came close to admitting that its denials were based not on science but the lack of it. There is “very limited to no clinical information available regarding long-term health outcomes in pregnant women and their developing fetuses, and children under the age of six, including infants who are breastfed, ” wrote associate commissioner for policy, Leslie Kux.
The FDA panel found that a review of the available literature showed there is no causal link between the use of dental amalgam and various clinical diseases in the general population.
Tulsa, Oklahoma attorney, James M. Love, who filed a lawsuit last year that finally got FDA moving on the petitions, strongly criticized the denials. The agency, he said, “continues to allow the American people to be poisoned by their mercury fillings despite the scientifically demonstrated risks. Despite the shift of many countries away from mercury fillings, it appears that the FDA believes that the human mouth is a safe place to store mercury.”
He added that “the burden of proving safety is on FDA, but FDA ignores this principal and places the burden on us to conclusively prove these fillings are causing diseases. FDA presumes that these fillings are safe – even for fetuses – while admitting that it has no data demonstrating safety.”
Interesting how the FA ignores the preponderance of scientific evidence of kidney disease and neurological disabilities and diseases caused by mercury fillings and still allows dentist to put these in patient’s mouths.
Taken from Jim Dickinson’s article, contributing editor of MD+DI’s News Products and Suppliers
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