Informed consent

As someone who testified at hearings and work sessions for LD 1409, which addressed the health effects of mercury fillings, I must take issue with Rep. Bob Daigle’s Feb. 14 letter in which he states that LD 1409 is not informed consent.

I’d say it was. This law plainly states the brochure “must explain the potential advantages and disadvantages to oral health, overall health and the environment of using mercury or mercury amalgam in dental procedures. … So that the patient can make an informed decision.”

Dentists do have the highest suicide rate of all professions. As a member of the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention and a Maine AFSP board nominee, I know that is a fact. Rep Daigle stated it was a false claim. One-half gram of mercury polluting a lake not true? Actually, it is true. The Maine Department of Environmental Protection, the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Geological Survey all state the mercury in one thermometer is enough to do this.

Was Sen. Susan Collins all wet when she stated that the one gram of mercury in a fever thermometer will contaminate a 20-acre lake for a year so the fish are not suitable to eat? Half a gram will do up a 10-acre lake just fine. Crying children given a script and pushed to the lectern by parents? No way. I was there. No one was crying.

Marjorie Monteleon

Maine DEP Dental

Mercury Workgroup

Southwest Harbor