Your Mouth is Killing You - 2

Gifts from Your Dentist

Dentists have accomplished many great things in this country in terms of promoting oral health, but on three key issues, they stand on the wrong side of history and health:

1. Fluoride

 2. Mercury fillings

3. Root canals

Fluoride

In Chapter 11, Dying of Thirst, I discussed in some detail the evidence that fluoride is a dangerous toxic substance that has no business being added to our drinking water. But it is worth repeating here that new research has revealed that fluoride in drinking water makes the aluminum that we ingest more bioavailable. In the presence of fluoride, more aluminum crosses the blood-brain barrier and is deposited in the brain. As was reported in Brain Research, Vol.7 84:98, the

bottom line is that the combination of aluminum and fluoride causes the same pathological changes in brain tissue that are found in Alzheimer's patients.

Mercury fillings

The American Dental Association has resolutely maintained for years that "when mercury is

combined with the metals used in dental amalgam, it's toxic properties are made harmless." If this were true, it would be miraculously fortuitous. Amalgam, which consists of mercury, silver, tin, copper, and a trace amount of zinc, has been used by dentists for well over several hundred years—as far back, actually, as the 7th century in China. Here in the United States, mercury-based fillings made their appearance in the early 1800s. From the beginning, there were a number of dentists who were concerned by the presence of

mercury, since by that time it was fairly well known that mercury was poisonous. In fact, these concerns were so strong, that by the mid-1940s, several dental societies, including the American Society of Dental Surgeons, had joined together to stop the use of amalgam fillings. But amalgam was just too easy to work with, and whatever ill effects people experienced were too far down the road to matter, and so, in 1859, the American Dental Association was founded—primarily to promote the use of mercury amalgam as a safe and desirable tooth filling material. There were no tests done. No studies. Nothing. Amalgam was promoted because it was easy to work with. The reason the mercury was used in it was because mercury serves to "dissolve" the other metals and make an homogenous whole. It would be miraculous indeed if you could use one of the most toxic substances known to man with no ill effect. How was it defended? Well, the early position was that the mercury reacts with the other metals to form "a biologically inactive substance" so that none of it ever makes its way into your body. That too would have been miraculous indeed if that were true—but, of course, it is not. Numerous studies conducted in the 1970s and 80s have proven conclusively that the mercury from fillings (primarily from mercury vapor created when we chew) makes its way into the body, ending up in our lungs, heart, stomach, kidneys

, endocrine glands, gastrointestinal tract, jaw tissue, and our brains. Once it became irrefutable that mercury from the fillings was ending up in our bodies, it then

became mandatory that the ADA find a new defense. Again, not based on study, but rather on convenience, it became the position of the ADA that: Well yes, maybe some mercury does make its way into the body, but at levels that are so low it has no effect on our health. And once again, it would be miraculous indeed if that were true. Unfortunately, it is not. Like so many other toxic substances, the real problem with mercury is that it is a cumulative poison. The body holds onto a significant percentage of the mercury that enters it.

Mercury is one of the most toxic metals known—more toxic even than lead. And while there is no conclusive evidence that the mercury from fillings causes any particular health problems, there are, on the other hand, a number of studies that "imply" such a relationship. First of all, there is strong evidence that mercury lowers T-Cell counts. This, alone, implicates amalgam fillings in cancer, autoimmune diseases, allergies, candida overgrowth, and multiple sclerosis. It has also been shown that mercury interferes with the ability of the blood to carry oxygen—actually cutting its oxygen carrying capabilities by half. This would account for many instances of chronic fatigue. Mercury also has an affinity for our brains and is implicated in brain tumors and dementia. And, finally, mercury has an affinity for fetal tissue—reaching higher levels in the fetus than in the mother herself—which accounts for mercury's implication in birth defects. What about other sources of mercury entering the body? Well, seafood is of course a source. And some of the foods we eat are too. But, when all is said and done, the amount of mercury entering our bodies from amalgam fillings represents anywhere from 50-90% of the total amount. So why in the world does the ADA continue to support the use of amalgam fillings? One simple answer is: if you're in for an inch, you're in for a mile. What would the legal ramifications be if the ADA suddenly announced that they, and all the dentists connected with them, had been wrong for well over 100 years and had been slowly poisoning all Americans? Can you spell tobacco?

[to be continued] 

Source: Jon Barron, Lessons from the Miracle Doctors: A Step-by-Step Guide to Optimum Health and Relief from Catastrophic Illness, www.jonbarron.org, 2002.