Testimony to MA Executive Office of Health and Human Services - December 10, 2012

Laura Henze Russell, Principal, 

Hidden River Health Challenge

December 10, 2012

I am Laura Henze Russell, founder of Hidden River Health Challenge, a mercury poisoned survivor working to improve our health and reduce chronic diseases by promoting mercury free dentistry and supportive health care. We work for health education, better dental insurance plans, and rebooting health and dental systems through education, advocacy, and moving people and markets.  We are reaching out to develop a collaborative agenda for change and to organize innovative research challenges and demonstrations to reduce health disparities.

For 20 years I had chronic pain, fatigue, sleep, memory and balance problems that were diagnosed as fibromyalgia. Between March 2011 and March 2012, I had a year of acute escalating health problems that a dozen specialists could not diagnose. I gave up hope. Then, by the grace of God, one of my doctors heard a presentation at a conference that symptoms like mine could be caused by a toxicity reaction to dental materials. Small amounts of mercury vapor escape from fillings with heat and abrasion. People with certain gene types do not clear mercury well, so develop health problems over time. I was able to get treated and get healthy again by removing the amalgam and following a detoxification protocol.

There are two new breaking studies released in September and October 2012:

1.   James Woods and team at U of Washington retracted earlier findings of amalgam safety in children and found that boys of a certain gene type have significant neurobehavioral deficits and kidney damage.

2.  Thomas Duplinsky of Yale Medical School found that dentists compared to matched controls have significantly higher prescription use in neurological, psychiatric, cardiovascular and respiratory disease.

This is new information and I would like to help other people in Massachusetts who have chronic illnesses, health problems, premature aging, memory deficits, mood swings or other health problems due to the hidden river of mercury in our bodies learn about this risk and regain health.

I have been working as a volunteer for 9 months to research mercury dental amalgam toxicity in the U.S.  I attended the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology Conference in MN, the U.S. CDC Health Statistics Conference in DC, and a symposium in CT, and am in contact with biologic dentists, scientific researchers, injured patients and advocates across the U.S. 

I am working with legislators and committee chairs at the State House to develop bills and budget items for the upcoming session, and have begun discussions with national funders on demonstration projects, and ask DPH and EOHHS to be a leader and partner in these efforts.

Action Agenda on Mercury Amalgam Illness

1.      Determine the Scope of the Problem of Dental Mercury Poisoning and Public Awareness

•       Hold public hearings around the state to get input from injured patients and their family members, and health and dental professionals.
•       Set up a patient registry and reporting mechanism at the Betsy Lehman Center and DPH Center for Health Information and Analysis.
•       Call for FDA Adverse Events Form 3500 Reporting to be mandatory by dentists and doctors for adverse reactions to dental materials and oral medical devices.
•       Develop pamphlets for patients, doctors, dentists, nurses and other health professionals, and targeting high risk groups which include older adults, military and veterans, Native Americans, and low-income people. Why the military? High usage, and greater at risk of heat and abrasion. For example, soldiers face greater risk of mercury off gassing through abrasion of teeth from traveling on dirt roads and combat related injuries, as well as desert heat.
•       Utilize the MA Prevention and Wellness Trust to investigate and educate to mitigate health disparities from amalgam toxicity, with a special focus on higher risk populations who have a higher incidence and cumulative body burden of mercury amalgam.

2.      Specific Informed Consent and Health Warnings

• Reform MA Dental Code sections 515 and 517 to provide for specific informed consent for dental fillings, and reporting for morbidity, not just mortality, for dental procedures.
• Include warnings to patients similar that dentists get from manufacturers under FDA’s Class II Special Controls Guidance Document for Mercury and Dental Amalgam.
• Develop an informational brochure for patients as Connecticut did by executive action.
• Include information on materials and potential side effects, similar to prescription drugs.
• Include recommendations for patch testing, as required by FDA for hair color products.
• Include recommendations for biocompatibility blood tests for dental materials.

3.      Dental Insurance Reform

• Require dental plans be cost-neutral for alternatives to amalgam outside of the "smile area".
• Require dental plans to cover remediation when medically necessary.
• Flexible spending account for dental work as a pre-tax alternative to dental insurance.

4.      Structural Solutions

       A Blue Ribbon Commission can sink its teeth into these issues and consider how health care and dental insurance systems and medical and dental records can be better integrated to promote health and reduce chronic diseases.

·     Examine ways to update screening standards, such as periodic heavy metals and toxics screens, covering provoked urine testing to determine body burden, screenings before pregnancy and behavioral health referrals, and for concussion patients and returning soldiers.

·     Promote biologic dentistry, which integrates dentistry and health based on evidence-based research, similar to ways to promote clean and green energy and energy conservation industries.

·     End the FDA logjam on dental amalgam by calling on the President and Congress to direct FDA to follow the recommendations of its Scientific Advisory Panels in 2006 and 2010 to restrict its use in young children, pregnant women, and people with a known “allergy” to mercury.

We can save money and bend the cost curve down by stopping poisoning people who lose the gene lottery, and pay a heavy price as they age. This will have spinoff effects that can also help reduce costs of long term care, unemployment, lost tax revenues, and special education. Thank you.

The Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow: Mercury Does Not Belong in Your Mouth - May 2012

Laura: Mercury does not belong in your mouth

   

Laura Henze Russell is a member of the Massachusetts delegation to the Safer Chemicals Healthy Families' Stroller Brigade for Safe Chemicals in Washington DC.

Laura grew up on Long Island, New York. The horror of cancer hit home early for Laura when one of her friends lost her mother to the disease in high school. Unfortunately it didn't stop there.  Over time, the the majority of her friends from the neighborhood, and their mothers, have contracted breast cancer.

Cancer hit her family too. Laura's mother got non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in her 60s, her father--who was not a smoker--was diagnosed with lung cancer in his 80s, and Laura herself had breast cancer in her 40s and got fibromyalgia 20 years ago. 

She says of her childhood neighborhood, "We lived down the street from a mansion that was converted to a dairy, which sounded pretty wholesome. However, we later wondered what the dairy released into the water supply as they packed their products."  When that many people have cancer, questions start to get asked.

Today, Laura lives in Sharon, Massachusetts with her husband and 20 year old son, and health problems with links to toxic chemicals have not left her alone. Last year she experienced escalating and aggravating health problems including finger tremors, unexplained skin problems and infections, allergies and sensitivities to foods she'd eaten her whole life, and continued challenges with her fibromyalgia. After a year of inconclusive doctors appointments and a battery of expensive tests, the culprit was finally found: mercury.

Like so many of us, Laura had a mouth full of mercury. A common dental filling material known as "amalgam," also referred to as "silver" is made of 43 to 54 percent mercury, a potent neurotoxin. Laura had many such fillings and the mercury level in her body was elevated to more than 40 percent over the normal range even two months after starting detox.

Laura is on a mission to prevent others from having to go through what she did. "Physicians, labs and hospitals are not equipped to recognize and diagnose mercury poisoning," she said. "I got third opinions from numerous specialists who said that it was all in my head. It was not even raised as a consideration."

She sees friends and colleagues experiencing similar health problems and wonders if they too have been impacted by mercury or other toxic chemicals.

Her mission is an economic one too.  "Mercury and other toxic chemicals wreak havoc on the immune and central nervous systems and and open the door to many heath problems and diseases that are extremely debilitating and raise health care costs," she said. "If we want to keep health care costs down we need to stop poisoning people."

Thankfully, this saga turned into a success story; within a week or two of starting mercury detox, she had a dramatic reduction of some of her symptoms. Now, two months later she says, "I am stronger and healthier than I've been in 20 years!"

From Ocean Lifeguard to Health Lifeguard

Hidden River Health Challenge: A Social Innovation Enterprise

April 23, 2012

From Ocean Lifeguard to Health Lifeguard

I was an ocean lifeguard and have the lifeguard's mission to protect everyone in and out of the water. 

If there is a rip tide, I'd swim out and help guide people in safely to minimize risk. I'd help them understand what to do next time to stay safe. I'd give anyone who needed it first aid. I also loved to teach Red Cross swimming lessons - how to enjoy the ocean, bay and lake while enjoying nature, exercise, and breaking waves' ozone and endorphins. 

After being chronically ill, and finally figuring it out, and working to regain and restore my health and vitality, I have a new calling: as a sort of Health Lifeguard.

Hallelujah, I am Healthy Again!

After 20 years of chronic disease and a year of escalating health problems, I'm healthy again! 

The keys to understanding chronic diseases are unfortunate combinations of gene types and toxins, which trigger inflammation.

Inflammation, causes a raft of awful, no good, very bad, cognitive, immune, neurological and psychiatric diseases, as well as damage to cells, nerves, organs, senses and skin.  

I am healthier! I lost years of health, lost years of income, and still have years of higher dental and medical costs.  

I don't want others to have to go through what I went through, physically or financially.

Join us at Hidden River, to help ourselves and others too.

Hidden River Health Challenge's Origins

There is a dark cloud the color of mercury in the sky, reflecting the hidden river of mercury in our teeth, our bodies, our brains, our children, and our legacy to the planet and future generations.

The lifeguard stand has been absent throughout the long year of acute mercury amalgam toxicity illness, and during 20 years of chronic disease that onset soon after I stopped breastfeeding my son and had deferred dental work that drilled out and replaced cracked amalgam fillings - a connection I just recently realized. 

With a dentist using only a dental dam which does not protect us from its toxic vapor, and the genetic susceptibility I later learned I had to mercury toxicity (I do not clear it well and it builds up over time), the die was cast as darkly as the sky.