While silver/amalgam fillings are not requested very often in our practice, as most prefer to have fillings that blend in with their natural teeth, they are something that we do when situations warrant, as I discussed in an earlier post.
However, when it comes to the general topic of silver fillings, there are a lot of misconceptions, myths, and outright falsehoods out there. There are groups that CLAIM to have proof of a vast conspiracy by dentists to poison our population by using silver fillings (these are probably the same groups who believe that fluoride is a Russion attempt at mind-control of US citizens so they can take us over – hasn’t happened yet, and the conspiracy has been around for decades.); these groups CLAIM to have scientific proof that the mercury in silver fillings is poison that will lead to an absolutely amazing range of diseases, and that the simple removal of those amalgam fillings will almost magically cure those diseases. And it gets even wilder than that, but unless you’re specifically looking for a good laugh at how crazy these conspiracy theories get, I won’t bore you with all of them.
Let me be perfectly clear about my stance on this issue:
To date, there is absolutely NO, repeat NO CREDIBLE EVIDENCE that the small amounts of mercury present in amalgam/silver fillings causes any disease or disorder whatsoever.
I hope that was clear enough. 🙂
If silver fillings were as bad as the conspiracy theorists claim, then pretty much the whole world would be crazy, as amalgam fillings have been placed by the billions over the last 100+ years. My parents, for example, would have been beset by a myriad of illnesses, as both of them had a mouthful of silver fillings for many decades, and only recently have they been replaced as they’ve slowly worn out. Any strange illnesses in either of them? Nope. Nothing changed after they were taken out 1-by-1 either.
As a rather interesting side note: during my dental school years at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Dentistry, I did a 2-month summer exchange at the dental school in Munich, Germany. While there, I was approached by several professors to proof-read some studies that they had translated prior to publishing them in English-language dental journals. Please bear in mind that Germany has pretty much banned amalgam fillings for many years, so it’s not like they are fans of the material. These professors had carried out a study that attempted to find a link between the presence of amalgam filings and a wide range of diseases and disorders; the study had lasted 5-6 years. And what were the results? Simply this:
They were unable to find any positive evidence of a connection between the amalgam fillings and ANY of the list of diseases and disorders that they had listed. Not one.
Kind of interesting coming from professors in a country that has practically banned the material for as long as they have, don’t you think?
