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Natural Awakenings South Central Pennsylvania

Mercury Exposure of Dentists

Pentti Nupponen

According to the Journal of the American Dental Association, dental offices are one of the largest users of inorganic mercury. It is well documented that dentists and dental personnel that work with amalgam are chronically exposed to mercury vapor, which accumulates in their bodies to much higher levels than for those non-occupationally exposed.

The health effects from exposure to mercury vapor from dental amalgam have been the subjects of recent studies. In a research article published in the International Journal of Statistics in Medical Research, Yale School of Medicine researchers Thomas Duplinsky and Domenic Cicchetti concluded that dentists using mercury are much more likely to receive physician-prescribed health medications that are used to treat neurological, neuropsychological, respiratory and cardiac disease; therefore advised that dentists consider using restorations that do not contain mercury. The study states that this change would lead to improved medical health for themselves, their dental employees and the children and adults they treat.

Dr. Pentti J. Nupponen, an integrative and holistic dentist in Harrisburg, says that historically, dental schools don’t teach their students about mercury toxicology, necessary precautions or dental materials reactivity testing. “Many dentists are unaware of the everyday occupational risks of continuous toxic mercury exposure to themselves, to their staffs and to their patients,” he says.

Walter Clifford, of Clifford Consulting & Research Inc., an informational source used by healthcare professionals dealing with testing for the cellular reactivity to more than 11,000 dental chemicals and their chemical families, says, “Today, there are 860 different direct composite dental filling material choices for dentists to choose from, instead of using the mercury-amalgam fillings. There is absolutely no reason to use mercury-amalgam.”


For more information, visit LifeScienceGlobal.com, CcrLab.com or HalifaxDentistry.com.