Not wanting to wade through the pages of quackery on the internet, I thought that I’d ask here.
Dental amalgam and mercury. I was under the impression that mercury is released from everyday activity and that this is not good. However, the levels involved are not something to get overly worried about, just something to avoid if possible.
Anyone have the dope? I followed the link to Quackwatch provided by DavidB elsewhere. I’d assume, especially given his mod status, that that link is pretty definitive (it basically says the whole thing is complete BS, from a health POV), but you can never be sure just how far the mercury-amalgam complex have penetrated.
The specific filling in question was done 23 years ago in the UK.
Although there’s no date, that’s a Classic. So I’d guess that it’s from the late 80s (last cite is 1986 and there’s no mention of the 60 minutes program in 1990).
Follow-ups/related items to that column from the Comments board are here and here .
It seems that Quackwatch is recognised as not having a vested interest, which addresses my concern that they might be going to the other extreme. Case closed, unless there’s some post-2001 evidence.
Link to the Quackwatch article (and not just the detection sub-article) is here.
The considerable irony in quoting “Quackwatch” is that the word quack originated as an abbreviation of quacksalber, i.e. quicksilver, i.e. mercury. Inferior pretenders to the medical arts used mercury as a remedy for syphilis, which I suppose sent more patients to the grave quicker than they would have gotten there on their own.
The use of mercury is medicine is thought to have originated with the Swiss alchemist Paracelsus von Hohenheim (1493-1541), who first got the idea as a young man while working as an overseer in the mines of Austria.