Mercury Exposure from Dental Amalgam

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in: IAOMT Petition for Reconsideration
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Boyd Haley P.h.D. discusses measuring mercury vapor released from amalgam fillings.

Boyd Haley discusses his study measuring how much mercury vapor is emitted from types of dental amalgam fillings.


The FDA cites an ill-defined and unsubstantiated estimate of absorbed mercury exposure from dental amalgam of 1 to 5 μgs/day that supposedly relates to the presence of between 7 and 10 amalgam fillings.

This conclusion is attributed to a report by the Public Health Service publishedin 1993 (PHS, 1993). This cited report did not contain or conduct a detailed quantification of mercury exposure but based its estimates on the review of other yet older reports.

In fact, PHS(1993) acknowledged that estimates of mercury exposure from amalgam span 1 μg/day to 29μgs/day (see PHS, 1993, Appendix III), with higher estimates appropriately acknowledged for the sizable population of persons who have more than ten amalgam fillings.

Contrary to the FDA’s statement, the WHO Environmental Health Criteria 118 (WHO1991) did not “[find] that values generally in the range of 1-5 μg/day were estimated in theU.S. adult population”.

Rather, WHO (1991) concluded that “estimated average daily intake and retention” from dental amalgam was 3.8-21 (3-17) μg/day (values in brackets representingretained (absorbed) dose (WHO, 1991, Table 2).

Contrary to FDA’s assertion, the WHO (2003) did not conclude that “the highest estimate that WHO reports was a dose of 12 μgs/day, for middle-aged individuals with approximately 30 amalgam surfaces (Ref. 22)”.

In the Executive Summary of this document (WHO 2003), WHO clearly states “Dental amalgam constitutes a potentially significant source of exposure to elemental mercury, with estimates of daily intake from amalgam restorations ranging from 1 to 27 μg/day.”

 

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