B. Windham, Research Director and President, DAMS International, berniew1@embarqmail.com
Comments on Children’s
Amalgam Study one:
"Neurological and
Renal Effects of Dental Amalgam in Children", D.C. Bellinger et al, JAMA,
The
study design was not a serious effort to determine amalgam safety. The study
was an unethical use of a known highly toxic substance on children who were not
fully informed or in a position to understand the implications. But the author’s interpretation of results is
also questionable.
It
is known from thousands of studies and millions of tests by medical labs that
those with amalgam get significantly higher mercury exposure than those
without, that mercury accumulates in the brain and major organs proportionately
to the number of amalgam fillings, and commonly causes chronic degenerative
neurological conditions later in life.
http://www.flcv.com/damsindx.html
Thus
the ethics in the exposure to a group of children to higher levels of a very
neurotoxic substance such as mercury is highly questionable.
This
study was not a serious test of the safety of amalgam since the exposure was to
children with no previous amalgam fillings at relatively low levels of exposure
for a very limited period of time. The
mean number of restored amalgam surfaces in the mouth of the amalgam group at
the end of the study was only
For more details see: www.flcv.com/hgchilds.html
Children’s Amalgam Study
2:
Preliminary
Comments on “Neurobehavioral Effects of
Dental Amalgam in Children”, T. A. De
Rouen, et al, JAMA,
In
justifying the study design the author’s state on page 1 that “there is little
or no evidence concerning health effects of low level mercury exposure from
amalgam, especially in children”. In
fact, there are over 3,000 peer-reviewed studies in the medical literature(3)
that were submitted by parties in the FDA amalgam docket to the FDA (4), that
document the mechanisms by which mercury(from amalgam) commonly causes over 30
chronic health conditions. And there are
hundreds are peer-reviewed studies and clinical studies that document that many
thousands of patients with these
conditions have improved after amalgam replacement(2). While it is clear that
hundreds of thousands (or millions) of children have had their health adversely
affected by mercury, since there are multiple exposure mechanisms it’s not
clear the extent to which dental amalgam is responsible (7).
But the main problem with the study design appears
to be the choice of what conditions were tested for and the kinds of tests that
were used. In describing why the chosen
conditions were tested for and in what manner, the authors stated on page 2 of
the study that the target organs for elemental mercury exposure from amalgam
were identified to be the renal system and neurological functions(memory,
attention/concentration, and motor/visuomotor).
Actually, while there is documentation in the medical literature of many
other types of health effects, there is little evidence in the literature on
common renal effects.(1,2,3). And there are other types of health effects that
have been well documented in the literature to be more commonly caused by
mercury than attention or memory(though these also have been documented to be
commonly caused by mercury exposure).
The referenced analysis
shows that the basic assumptions that the authors say they based their study
design on were not valid, and the study does not demonstrate what it has been
suggested to demonstrate. For details
and references, see: www.myflcv.com/hgchilds.html
