Silent Spring 2015 - FDA Must Recognize Dental Amalgam Dangers
MetroWest Daily News
By Laura Henze Russell, Guest Columnist Posted May. 28, 2015 at 8:39 PM
Will FDA throw medical device illness patients a lifesaver, or continue to see, hear and speak no evil of dental and medical devices that - due to genetic variability in methylation, immunity, and detoxification pathways - are not "Right for Us?"
We need Right To Know and Written Informed Consent for everything installed in our bodies. We need new Universal Device Indicators (UDIs), now being rolled out by FDA, in our electronic medical records - not just in dental records, which are not seen by our doctors, or by BigData, and considered as a factor in disease and health.
It is time to recognize and respect Genetic Rights, and put patients' health first through Precision Devices. We do not control our DNA, so we need strict controls and prior biocompatibility screening for all dental and medical device materials before they are installed. This is basic science and safety to protect children and adults as genetically unique snowflakes.
It is impressive that Makers and the Makers movement can make anything these days. That brings great promise, especially as we do not take care to preserve our bodies by being careful about what we eat and what we install in them. The FDA needs to come down squarely on the side of patients and the Maker - who makes our bodies and brains as living, pulsing cells, neurons, organs and systems - that do not take kindly to foreign materials, especially if they have common genetic methylation variants.
FDA tells us to do a patch test for hair color products 24 hours in advance. It is time to require a one-time advance biocompatibility test for all installed dental and medical materials, before they are permanently installed, with an exception for emergency procedures, in which case post-testing can be done.
Rachel Carson was a marine biologist who helped protect birds from extinction by noting the impact of DDT on their ability to reproduce. Today, humans are the endangered species, and the endangering one. Mercury is human DDT, wreaking havoc on cells, health and lives. It is time to get it out of U.S. dentistry for all time.
We must make Precision Devices the top priority for President Obama, the FDA, CDC, NIH, PHS, IHS, HHS and the Surgeon General of the United States, so we stop chronic toxic poisoning of those for whom dental and medical devices are not a good fit, based on their genetic profile. This will significantly lower rates of autoimmune, behavioral, cardiovascular, cognitive, dermatological, kidney, neurological, and psychiatric diseases, as well as memory, mobility, movement, mood and mental status changes, as these are triggered or exacerbated by systemic chronic inflammation.
The administration, Congress and the courts must take swift action now to reboot the FDA's practically medieval medical device regulations. The bill to regulate devices was proposed by President John F. Kennedy in 1962. It passed 14 years later, in 1976. There is now action to add UDIs to devices under recent legislation that is being rolled out for comment starting this month. However, patients still get no information sheets on composition and health risks, no right of written informed consent for installation of dental fillings or information on who to contact if problems arise as MedWatch Form 3500B Adverse Event Reports make no mention of dental devices, patients do not know the manufacturer or model and serial number as it was never provided, and hundreds of reports filed over the years have been lost or misplaced by the FDA and never entered into MAUDE.
The FDA repeatedly overrules its own expert product panels on dental amalgam, repeatedly ignores petitions for reconsideration of its flawed risk assessment, repeatedly ignores expert dentist and ill and injured patient testimony. The FDA repeatedly ignores new scientific evidence of immediate neurobehavioral harm and kidney changes to children with certain gene types, and mounting evidence of harm to dentists, dental workers, and patients compared to matched controls, with harm linked to certain gene types that do not methylate well.
The FDA is repeatedly sued and ordered to act by a federal judge, but still allows dental amalgam to be in Class II unrestricted use with no warnings to patients and no written informed consent. It still allows dental amalgam to be called silver fillings, even though they are 50 percent mercury fillings. It is still studying the safety of dental amalgam, six years after its flawed classification. Labels and warnings to dentists only protect the manufacturers from liability, they do not help patients. Dentists are silent because of gag orders on the health risks of amalgam in the ADA Code of Ethics.
The ADA is a patent-holding organization that mixes professional and commercial/trade functions. Nobody knows, acts or cares about this fundamental conflict of interest. Except the legions of prematurely aged, cognitively challenged, unsteady on their feet, chronically diseased, disabled, hearts failing, kidneys failing, unemployed and suffering mercury poisoned patients and their families.
The same thing happens in other devices. Some 4,500 reports have been filed and five women have died from complications from the Essure contraceptive coil. Many women have been harmed by vaginal mesh. Men and women alike have been harmed by various implants in the teeth, jaw, and throughout the body. While modern engineering marvels and the Makers Movement can make anything these days, we must first pay attention to the original Maker - how our bodies as cells and electrical charges operate, and what they can tolerate that is foreign to the human body, which varies as each individual is as genetically unique as a snowflake.
Laura Henze Russell is the Principal of Precision Research and Communications: Precision Health. She planned to attend the FDA Science Forum May 27-28 in Washington, DC, but is home recovering from pneumonia. Participating through the Webcast, on Day 1 four of her 14 questions have been posed to panelists. You can see them in the Tweet stream here: https://twitter.com/hashtag/FDAScienceForum.
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