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Environmental Risks Of And Regulatory Response To Mercury Dental Fillings
Wednesday, November 14, 2007 2 p.m. 2154 Rayburn Washington, D.C. 20515 This hearing will examine the environmental risks of mercury in dental fillings (known as dental mercury amalgam) and the government’s regulatory response to it.
Dental offices are the third-largest user of mercury in the United States. Mercury contained in the existing dental fillings of Americans comprises over half of all mercury in use today, amounting to more than 1,000 tons.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), “Mercury discharges (in wastewater) from dental offices far exceeded all other commercial and residential sources.” These discharges may have a significant negative effect on the environment. Sludge, the mercury-contaminated by-product of municipal sewage treatment plants, is often incinerated, causing the formation of “methyl mercury,” the most toxic and dangerous form of mercury.
EPA’s only dental mercury-specific program is an educational program to encourage new dentists to use equipment to prevent mercury from entering the wastewater.
Mercury dental devices are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but the FDA has never conducted an environmental assessment of the use of dental mercury amalgam as prescribed by law.
Witnesses for the November 14 hearing include:
Panel I
• TBD, Environmental Protection Agency
• Dr. Norris Alderson, Director, Office of Science and Health Coordination, Food and Drug Administration
Panel II
• Mr. Ray Clark, Senior Partner, From The Clark Group, LLC
• Mr. Bruce Terris, Partner, from Terris, Pravlik & Millian, LLP
• Mr. C. Mark Smith, Co-Chair, Mercury Task Force, New England Governor’s Conference
• Mr. Michael Bender, Executive Director, from the Mercury Policy Project
• Mr. Rod Mackert, Dentist and Faculty Member, from the Medical College of Georgia
U.S. Congress Demands Account from FDA for Refusing To Classify Mercury Fillings & Refusing To Do E.I.S.
Members of Congress increasingly disgusted with FDA’s refusal to classify mercury fillings and refusing to do an Environmental Impact Statement about this issue are calling the agency to task. At the request of Congresswoman Diane Watson and Congressman Dan Burton, the Subcommittee on Domestic Policy of the House Committee on Government Reform will have a hearing in the Rayburn Bldg. on Wed., Nov. 14, 2007, at 2:00 pm. The Chairman of the Subcommittee is maverick Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, a friend of alternative medicine. We express our deep appreciation to Congressman Kucinich for calling FDA to account.
--Charlie Brown, National Counsel, Consumers for Dental Choice
Background: Since 1976, the FDA has placed all medical devices into three classifications based on the relative risk each poses to human safety, but they have always managed to avoid classifying pre-capsulated and mixed dental amalgam. Class I devices pose the least risk, and require the least oversight. Examples are band-aids, exam gloves, and dental mercury! Class II devices present moderate risk and get more regulatory oversight. Examples are powered wheelchairs, infusion pumps, and dental alloy. Class III devices pose serious risks, and require proof of safety and efficacy. Examples of these include breast implants and replacement heart valves.
The fact that there is no classification for pre-capsulated and mixed dental amalgam means that the amalgam-using dentist is the manufacturer of record of an unregulated product. The liability issues have never been tested. In recent years, the pro-amalgam FDA staff has made some moves to quietly place all amalgam in Class II, which would remove it from serious examination of safety issues, but they have been opposed by IAOMT and Consumers for Dental Choice. Our respective lobbying efforts have led to the hearing scheduled for November 14, to once again bring the FDA's failure to deal honestly with amalgam into the light.
MERCURY: Kucinich's panel to weight dangers of dental fillings (November 13, 2007)
Russell J. Dinnage, E&E Daily reporter
Getting cavities and having them filled at the dentist may contribute more than 1,000 tons of highly toxic methyl mercury to the environment per year, according to the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee.
The committee's Domestic Policy Subcommittee holds a hearing tomorrow on how dental mercury amalgam, which is used in tooth fillings, affects the environment. Subcommittee Chairman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) intends to ask U.S. EPA and Food and Drug Administration officials about what the agencies are doing on the regulatory end to stem the flow of wastewater discharges from dentist's offices nationwide that "may have a significant negative effect on the environment," the subcommittee said.
According to the subcommittee, EPA's only dental mercury-specific program is an educational effort to encourage new dentists to use equipment to prevent mercury from entering their wastewater. FDA regulates mercury dental devices, but the agency has never conducted an environmental assessment of the use of dental mercury amalgam as prescribed by law.
"Dental offices are the third-largest user of mercury in the United States," the subcommittee said in a statement. "Sludge, the mercury-contaminated by-product of municipal sewage treatment plants, is often incinerated, causing the formation of 'methyl mercury,' the most toxic and dangerous form of mercury."
Mercury Policy Project executive director Michael Bender is set to testify before the subcommittee against the continued use of the toxic metal as a tooth filling.
According to Bender, legislative and regulatory efforts in New England have seen 75 percent of dentists there install amalgam separators in their office water systems, which have contributed to a 50 percent reduction in mercury loading in the Massachusetts watershed alone.
"Testimony will show that dental mercury air emissions are at least five times higher than recent EPA estimates and a significant amount of that has the potential to end up in fish," Bender said. "It's time for the American Dental Association to adopt a clean hands policy and stop polluting America's dinner plates."
Schedule: The House Oversight Domestic Policy Subcommittee hearing is scheduled for 2 p.m. tomorrow in 2154 Rayburn.
Witnesses: Ephraim King, EPA Office of Water; Norris Alderson, FDA Office of Science and Health Coordination; Ray Clark, Clark Group LLC senior partner; Bruce Terris, Terris, Pravlik & Millian LLP partner; C. Mark Smith, New England Governor's Conference Mercury Task Force co-chair; Michael Bender, Mercury Policy Project executive director; and Rod Mackert, Medical College of Georgia dentist and professor. |
