PRESS RELEASE: FOR GOOD HEALTH, INTEGRATED CARE AND MAKING CHRONIC DISEASES HISTORY

For release: May 22, 2014                

         

Contact: Laura Henze Russell, Principal, Hidden River Health Challenge, 339-364-0701 laurarussell2@comcast.net

Elizabeth Brody, Chief of Staff, Sen James Timilty, 617-722-1222, elizabeth.brody@masenate.gov

                                 

Sen. Timilty Working for EHS 692: For Good Health, Analyze Dental and Health Records

Sen. James Timilty (D-Walpole) filed Senate Budget Amendment EHS 692 to ask the MA Center for Health Information and Analysis to include dental insurance records in their health insurance database analyses, which are used by the MA Health Policy Commission to look at trends in chronic diseases and health care costs. Biocompatibility problems with dental materials, and dental infections are major drivers of inflammation, the common cause of many chronic diseases.

Rep. Louis Kafka and Sen. Brian A. Joyce each filed a bill related to dental amalgam in 2013. They were sent to study by the Public Health Committee, but its co-chairs welcomed a related budget amendment. Three other New England states and CA provide some consumer information, and the FDA says state consumer labeling does not violate preemption. The label could include a bar code and a QR code so people can look up more product information on their cell phones. The bills will be refiled next year.

Many legislators thought dentists stopped using amalgam years ago, and are surprised it is still in use. Everyone has an interest in keeping people healthy. Dental plans should be cost neutral and subject to patient protection laws and medical necessity. MassHealth should cover alternatives to amalgam, as Pennsylvania has for years. Paying a little more upfront for biocompatible filling materials can forestall years of higher health care costs for genetically susceptible children and adults. There are a half dozen common gene types that do not clear mercury well, raising the risk of immune and neurological damage. There are numerous studies on higher rates of chronic diseases with amalgam, and occupational risks.

Hidden River Health Challenge is also releasing a new Issue Brief today to make the case for action, subtitled, How We Can Get Better & Lower Health Care Costs by Blending Old & New Knowledge, Ending Conflicts & Rebooting the Health Sector. “It is time to catch up with the rest of the world, put patients instead of industry protectionism first, and end ‘conflict regulation’ and ‘conflict dentistry’ in the United States, says Laura Henze Russell, founder of Hidden River Health Challenge. 

Russell recovered from two decades of fibromyalgia and a year of escalating medical misery which turned out to be due to a genetic glitch in clearing mercury, which off-gases from dental amalgam. She delved into the subject in order to recover her health, and help protect others from her fate. “It is astounding to me that we get no labels, and have no right of written informed consent, for installation of a dangerous neurotoxin that is considered a medical device by the FDA,” says Russell.

Unlike the AMA which holds no patents so has no commercial and trade interests, the ADA was assigned 83 patents in the 38 years - 1976 to the present - in which the US patent office records are fully digitized, including two related to dental amalgam that expired in the mid-1990s. Patents granted to all sources on dental amalgam since 2002 are all related to mitigating its harm to the environment.

Russell sent in-depth letters with information on new peer reviewed journal articles on clinical trials showing harm from dental amalgam to boys with certain gene types to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, EOHHS, Division of Insurance, Attorney General, and the Sharon Board of Health. The Issue Brief is being shared with  the MA Legislature, Health Policy Commission, and stakeholders. The findings of amalgam safety from the Children’s Amalgam Trials have been retracted. The American Public Health Association declined in 2013 to ratify its interim policy that amalgam is safe and effective. Nigeria is the latest nation to end the use of dental mercury, announced May 21, 2014.

The International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology (IAOMT) filed a lawsuit against the FDA March 5^th for failing to respond to a petition to reconsider the flawed 2009 Class II dental amalgam ruling based on numerous errors in the FDA’s risk assessment after 54 months. The Administrative Procedures Act requires a response within one year.  IAOMT is one of three dental associations opposed to the continued use of dental amalgam. It supports science and trains dentists on safe removal techniques when indicated and special equipment needed beyond a dental dam to minimize patient and staff exposure to mercury vapor.

Mercury vapor from dental amalgam, mercury from fatty fish such as tuna and swordfish, from skin lightening creams, and from old medications such as mercurochrome and merthiolate are different forms of a potent neurotoxin and human exposure from all sources should be minimized.

It took Congress 14 years to pass President John F. Kennedy’s bill to add medical devices to the FDA. Unfortunately, Congress never instructed the FDA to require medical devices contain the kinds of patient labels, composition information, health risks, side effects, and a number to call to report adverse events that patients get for every prescription drug, and for chemicals. We get labels on our Cheerios, and labels and health warnings on toothpaste not to swallow it, but nothing on medical devices permanently installed in our teeth. It took the FDA 33 years to classify dental amalgam, and the risk classification is flawed, outdated, and out of step with much of Europe and Canada, which have warnings and consent. Four Scandinavian countries and Japan have banned its use.

There is a growing movement for funding, running and analyzing clinical trials data by gender, led by Dr. Paula Johnson of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and other speakers at the Women’s Health Summit in Boston in March. FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, who sat on Henry Schein’s board for six years, disagreed, saying it would be too expensive to reanalyze old studies, and we need to move forward. Biotech and medical researchers confirm the need to add gene type and gender.

Russell is a social innovation entrepreneur, economist and ethicist concerned with health and family wellbeing, an injured patient, a mother, wife and daughter with a family tree with its share of chronic diseases. After two decades of fibromyalgia, and a year of medical hell, Laura regained her health and ability to work. She faces large dental costs and lost her appeals to a “great” dental plan due to the FDA ruling that amalgam is still Class II, standard of care for everyone. A former ocean lifeguard, she renewed American Red Cross Water Safety Instructor, Lifeguard, and Lifeguard Trainer certifications.

Russell founded Hidden River Health Challenge: A Social Innovation Enterprise to help people learn about the impact of genes and toxins, importance of our own health information, share and take action. Hidden River is reaching out to people, stakeholders, and candidates running for office to build support for good health, integrated whole body care, and helping make chronic diseases history.

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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!"

The Poison in Our Teeth - On Massachusetts' Limitations as a Medical Mecca - May 29, 2012

• Russell: The poison in our teeth

Posted May. 29, 2012 @ 12:01 am

• Updated May 29, 2012 at 1:01 AM 

  
  

  By Laura Henze Russell/GUEST COLUMNIST
  

  I learned the hard way over the past year that while Boston is a great place if you need a face transplant, if you have a vexing medical condition — even one widely known in past centuries — not so much.

  During the past year, I had a vexing medical problem. It led to a series of co-infections, also confounding and not properly diagnosed.

  I went on to develop a systemic fungal infection, skin crawling and nerve firing sensations that were especially bad at night, allergic skin reactions and sensitivity to yeasts, gluten, corn and soy, falling immune markers, anxiety and mood swings, balance issues, dulling of hearing and smell, fatigue, finger tremors, memory issues, mental fog and neuropathy in my legs. Nearly a dozen specialists concluded I was imagining things, and it was all in my head.

  Turns out, they were half right. The problem was all in my head — amalgam fillings over the years, which are 50 percent mercury. How we continue to let this poison enter and remain in people’s mouths is beyond me. We have stringent lead testing and lead paint remediation laws, a Surgeon General’s warnings on cigarettes, and instead of leading the charge to ban mercury, the ADA persecutes dentists who remove it — using strict safety protocols — from sick, suffering patients’ mouths. First, do harm?

  How did I get enough mercury in me to be toxic? Let me count the ways. All eight of my molars once had amalgam fillings. They had given way to three root canals and five crowns, which involved drilling amalgam without protections and spitting out what I didn’t swallow. Many if not all still have some amalgam under them. Additionally I had two amalgam fillings in the past 10 years in upper bicuspids. A biologic dentist said my bite was heavy on my bicuspids, and I was grinding my teeth at night, which explains the worse symptoms at night. To add to cumulative exposure, when I grew up chemistry sets had mercury — it was kind of fun. I also had a mercury thermometer break when young. Then there is fish, to top off the tank. I now carry a fish mercury level wallet card, no more swordfish and tuna.

  How did I get a diagnosis? I had to work the problem. It took a year, going way beyond the confines of my health plan, and the third opinion consults from numerous of the specialty disciplines in Boston’s Medical Mecca. It included an integrative doctor, a parasitologist from Arizona, a biologic dentist and my PCP’s support for not giving up hope. It was additionally confirmed by a blood test by a neurologist I saw at a teaching hospital after I developed finger tremors. Two months into a detox protocol, my blood mercury level is 40 percent above the top of normal range.

  The root cause was predominantly dental material toxicity — mercury poisoning. There are only a half-dozen biologic dental practices in Massachusetts who practice safe removal for people with mercury toxicity. I began a protocol of homeopathic detox, which was markedly effective within the first two weeks in reducing nerve and skin sensations. It also includes herbs, nutritional support, lymphatic massage and diet. The biologic dentist discovered an infection deep in a facial muscle over an old root canal, and prescribed a highly effective antibiotic and two more antibiotics for another hidden infection.

  • Now, I am on the mend. Amazingly, some chronic health challenges are cured, my body is strong and energetic, my memory is better, I am brimming with health, and I feel like the clock has been turned back 20 years.

    The AMA, ADA, Boston area doctors, dentists, medical and dental schools, teaching hospitals, and computer-aided diagnostic programs evidently consider mercury poisoning a quaint artifact of the past, as the score of doctors and specialists I saw were clueless about this as a potential cause. I ran into a woman at my church whose father, grandfather and great grandfather were physicians — she was immediately familiar with it. Because I lost much of the last year to this fiasco, I am resolved to prevent it for others.

    What if I hadn’t discovered people who have gotten to the root of the problem and its causes, learned of and followed unusual treatment protocols, and paid for much of this out of pocket? The costs of treating accelerating medical, neurological, physiological, psychological, and problems in every other dimension of my body, mind, psyche and spirit are off the charts. Mercury wreaks havoc on the neurological system and the immune system, opening the door to all sorts of costly and debilitating conditions and disease from movement disorders to neurological degeneration. Multiply this by the number of boomers and older adults with aging mouths, silver smiles, and grinding teeth.

    I was a very costly date in the health care system last year, both to my health plan, and to me and my family. There is no excuse for this. If we want to bring down health care costs, stop putting a poisonous element permanently in people’s mouths. It’s that simple.

    The FDA convened a scientific advisory panel twice in recent years, 2006 and 2010. Both concluded that dental amalgam should not be used in children, pregnant women and hypersensitive adults. I am a poster child for the fact that mercury can cause hypersensitivity, so nobody is safe from it. We all age. The FDA has not acted and there is no timetable for action. Whatever happened to, “First, do no harm?”

    It is high time to follow in the footsteps of other nations and strike up the BAND — Ban Amalgam Now in Dentistry. Pass Legislation, issue an executive order, launch a ballot initiative — whatever it takes.