FDA reconsidering safety of mercury fillings

Article on the FDA re-investigating the safety of merciry fillings.  It's about time.  I love this part of the article:

"All the usual suspects insist mercury fillings are completely safe: TIME Magazine, the quack-busting critics who are quacks themselves, the ever-corrupt American Medical Association, FDA bureaucrats and of course the top officials of the dental industry. They acknowledge that mercury is a highly-toxic heavy metal that causes neurological damage, but they insist it's safe to put this metal in your mouth because somehow these metal fillings are impervious and won't release mercury into your body."

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Three mercury fillings gone...

I chipped a molar last night and, as a result, visited the dentist today, and while he was fixing the tooth, he took out three ancient silver fillings with all their old mercury goodness and put in three porcelains. And of course, whenever I get stuff like this done, I go to visit fascinating sites like this one, to read about what has been in my mouth for nearly 30 years. Ah, fun. Of course, per the FDA, mercury fillings are all harmless.

I spoke with my dentist about this, and he's a decent guy who said that there are two sides to it: yes, there are studies that show that the mercury fillings aren't good for you (and he doesn't do them anymore) but on the other side, when you go through the steps to remove the fillings, you'll be wearing down more of the tooth and could compromise the integrity of the tooth in the process. In my case, I had a chipped tooth in the vicinity of these fillings so I had a valid excuse for the removal, but I would like to eventually get ALL of these things out of my mouth for good.

After the work, I jokingly told my dentist I'd stay away from the jawbreakers, to which he, in all seriousness agreed, "yes, stay away from the jawbreakers." Drat, that used to be my favorite thing at Cracker Barrel...

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FDA Declares Mercury Amalgam Fillings Safe for All

The FDA declaring mercury fillings to be safe is highly questionable to me. I've heard some mixed things from, of all people, my own dentist. We talked about about mercury fillings, and while he does believe there can be some risk to these, the likelihood of these leaking is rare. The other thing he mentioned is, to have mercury fillings removed involves wearing down remaining tooth material to get them out. They don't just melt out, but you need to wear away the tooth further to get these out. So there's a trade-off involved there. Frankly, the idea of a mercury-based item situated in one's teeth does not seem like a good idea. My understanding is that it's mercury in vaccines that also causes these products to be suspect as well.

This gets into the area of heavy-metal detox, which is a new subject that I'm just beginning to research now. I've heard of a few foods that help remove toxic metals from the body, and I also know that fasting is supposed to do the same thing as well. I'm curious to learn more about what one needs to do to get toxic metals and chemicals out of the body.

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