Are mercury amalgams harmful?
I recently attended a seminar for physicians during which one of the lecturers, a doctor herself, mentioned the dangers of mercury exposure especially from fish. However she claimed that inorganic mercury found in dental amalgams and thermometers was essentially inert and therefore did not constitute a health hazard. Having just had my mercury fillings replaced with composite resin at a considerable expense I thought it would be a good idea to review all the scientific studies with regard to mercury toxicity including that, which results from amalgam fillings and other sources of mercury. In fact the whole area is still fraught with contradictions and controversy. In 1999 a status report conducted for the American Journal of Dentistry indicated that two well-controlled studies pointed to amalgam illness being a psychogenic disorder suggesting that problems with mercury were all in the mind. This report went on to say that removal of amalgams had at best a placebo effect. Another articl
