Close dark chapter in dental history

I would like express my deepest gratitude to state Sens. John Martin and Dennis Damon for their courage and wisdom in working to close a dark chapter in dental history by putting forth LD 1327 and LD 1338. I would also like to thank the members of the Natural Resources Committee for their leadership in passing bills that address the health effects of mercury fillings and making mandatory the installation dental mercury separators.

“It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.” This is exactly what some in the dental establishment are trying to do, in denying the extreme environmental damage that mercury amalgam causes to Maine and its people. Implanting the same elemental mercury that we have banned in fever thermometers, and are considering banning in button cell batteries, in the mouths of children, pregnant women, the poor and willing Maine citizens, must be made a criminal act.

As the commissioner of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection quoted as her motto and gauge for environmental issues: “Is Maine better off?” Ask yourselves, is Maine better off allowing a significant amount of mercury to still enter our state through dental offices? Are we better off ignoring source reduction and the virtual elimination of the most direct and dangerous mercury exposure to human health and the environment? Ask, am I not a natural resource, and what about my personal biological environment? Is Maine better off allowing toxic pollution to reside in its citizens by continuing to allow placement of mercury fillings? The answer has to be no.

The American Dental Association has adopted the “Best Management Practices for Amalgam Waste” (BMP). This is an attempt to save face by the ADA and look as if they really care about this issue. The pressure from states like Maine and others have forced the ADA to finally confront this issue although it has successfully resisted it for more than 150 years. This is the issue upon which the ADA was founded and

has fought very hard to protect.

In the BMP chart it shows the Do’s and Don’ts for dentists using mercury when it come to disposal of amalgam scrap or waste. According to this chart the only safe place for this toxic pollution is at the hazardous waste recycler or in the human mouth. This is the most hypocritical assumption of the modern era, that somehow the human mouth renders this toxic pollutant safe. According to this chart the Tooth Fairy would have to arrive in a Hazmat suit to pick up little Johnny’s mercury filled tooth. This tooth, according to the BMP, should be brought in for recycling, not be incinerated, put in the trash or biohazard bags.

Does that now mean that every child in Maine must deliver their mercury-filled baby teeth to their local Tooth Fairy recycling center? What about our dearly departed? Are we going to have dentists standing by to pull their mercury filled teeth to send them to be recycled before burial or cremation? Do we need mercury extractors placed on our toilets to catch the excreted mercury from human waste? Someone either has to bear the cost off this, or better yet this madness must be stopped.

Maine is looked to as a leader in protecting its citizens from mercury pollution. This is our greatest opportunity to be the first state in the nation to virtually eliminate mercury pollution, at its most direct source. Maine laws that protect our citizens and the environment from mercury pollution, do so to keep mercury from entering the human body.

There is no good reason to allow the implantation of mercury into the human body when affordable alternatives exist. To the Legislature: Please pass a combined form of LD1327 and LD1338, and give children, women of childbearing years, the poor and all of Maine’s most precious natural resources the protection we all need and deserve, from direct exposure to the toxic pollutant elemental mercury.

Pamela J. Anderson lives in Houlton.