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Mercury and other metals combine in dental amalgam and this is used as a dental filling to fill a tooth damaged by a cavity or external trauma. The use of mercury in the amalgam has given rise to fears amongst a number of patients who have had fillings made of this material. This has even resulted in people suing the American Dental Association for encouraging the use of such amalgams. People have gone to the extent of claiming that mercury in dental amalgams is responsible for diseases such as Autism, Multiple Sclerosis, fibromyalgia and Alzheimer’s.
The fears of mercury poisoning and causing medical problems such as tired and aching muscles has largely been unfounded and have proven to be without substance. Although mercury is hazardous in a pure form, when combined with other metals in the dental amalgam it is harmless. This is similar to sodium and chlorine, both otherwise harmful substances, coming together to form sodium chloride, otherwise known as table salt.
Nevertheless, a number of dental patients went in for changing their dental amalgams with other fillings that were either more expensive or did not last as much as mercury based dental fillings.
Experiments and medical trials have been carried out in which patients with dental amalgams containing mercury chewed on food in a special machine. The vapor that came out from the mouth of the patients was monitored for traces of mercury. Although mercury was found, the existence did not prove anything, since the level of mercury was insignificant and the vapor was not retained by the patients, it was exhaled. One of the symptoms of poisoning by mercury is significant traces of the metal in the tissue and urine of a person. No such traces were found in the people supposedly affected by mercury poisoning.
The position of the ADA was that if dental amalgams containing mercury did cause mercurial poisoning, dentists would be the most severely affected.
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