31 August 2022

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Ban mercury fillings: Advocacy groups to President Biden

Katherine E. Pfaff

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Groups call on the Presidential administration to appoint a Chief Dental Officer and eliminate mercury fillings for some.  More than 40 groups of health professionals, environmental groups, child advocacy groups, ethics and consumer groups have joined the effort calling for a stop to the use of dental fillings with mercury in children and pregnant women. 

Early in 2022, the Biden Administration led passage of an amendment to the Minamata Convention on Mercury that called for stoppage of the use of amalgam in fillings in children under 15 or in treatment of pregnant or breastfeeding women.

“This Administration, a world leader in protecting the public from mercury exposure, must not let its own federal agencies, led by holdover chief dental officers, subvert the new global policy which ends amalgam placement in children,” said Bobbi Wilding, Executive Director of Clean and Healthy New York. “Our nation's children deserve no less.”

The FDA also previously called for no longer using amalgam in treatment for young women and children, and patients with kidney disease, neurological disease. The FDA’s safety recommendations were made in 2020.

"Mercury dental fillings for children and pregnant women should have ended in government programs 2 years ago, when FDA publicly stated that exposure is harmful," said Nse Witherspoon, executive director of the Children's Environmental Health Network. "It is astounding that chief dental officers at the Public Health Service refuse to implement the Safety Recommendation of sister agencies at the Department of Health and Human Services. One would think our government would be first, not last, to follow FDA warnings for non-use of a toxic product on children."

The consortium of groups calls on the Administration to fill the role of Chief Dental Officer of the Public Health Service. The role would be appointed by Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and Assistant Secretary for Health, Rachel Levine.

"According to the World Health Organization, which cites a comprehensive European survey, 95% of consumers would choose mercury-free dentistry – either for health reasons, environmental reasons, or both," said Charles G. Brown of Consumers for Dental Choice. "Consumers do not want mercury-silver fillings – but federal bureaucracies defying the nation's science health regulator continue to hoist them onto the powerless recipients of federal programs like Indian Health, Department of Defense, and Bureau of Prisons."

Source: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/40-organizations-led-by-consumers-for-dental-choice-call-on-biden-harris-administration-to-appoint-chief-dental-officer-committed-to-ending-mercury-dental-fillings-in-federal-programs-301607766.html