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Maine Governor Angus
King today signed the most advanced bill in the United
States requiring dentists to inform their patients that amalgam
dental fillings contain a large percentage of the toxic element
mercury, which can be harmful to the wearer's health.
In his preliminary remarks before signing
the bill, Gov. King noted that Maine
has probably taken more action to get mercury out of the air
and water than any other state in the union. "And
yet we all carry it around in our mouths," he remarked.
Senate President Michael Michaud spearheaded
the bill and Representatives Joanne Twomey and Steven Stanley,
all of whom were present, spoke at the signing. Consumer advocates
Pam Anderson and Dr. Tom Anderson, a mercury-free dentist
from Houlton, ME, who led grassroots support for the bill,
participated in the ceremony as well.
Maine Senate President Michaud cited the
courage of the many individuals who testified on behalf of
the bill, especially the dentists who came forward to endorse
it despite the opposition of the American Dental Association.
"We hope that the U.S. will take Maine's lead and move
forward with legislation at the national level," he said.
The bill mandates that every
dentist's office will feature a poster and a brochure
informing patients about the presence
of mercury in amalgam fillings and about its negative
health effects.
Scientific research has shown that dental
amalgam is the chief source of mercury in the human body.
For that reason Rep. Twomey described the bill as a major
step forward for women of childbearing age and for children,
who receive their first exposure to mercury in the womb and
from their mother's breast milk.
Mercury has been implicated in neurological
disorders of children such as autism
and ADD/ADHD,
and in fertility problems
in women.
"We are delighted that this bill
has been signed," said Rep. Stanley. "It is a major
step forward to protect the health of Maine citizens."
Pam Anderson added that the group hopes
Maine's next step would be to ban the use of dental amalgam
in all women of childbearing age and in children.
"The public is being deceived by
the terminology used for these fillings," said Charles
Brown in his remarks. "The ADA calls them "silver"
fillings, but they are really mercury fillings. If people
knew the principal ingredient is mercury they would not want
these fillings in their teeth."
Gov. King compared the current use of
mercury in dental fillings with the 1950's use in shoe stores
of powerful x-ray machines called fluoroscopes, which exposed
hundreds of thousands of adults and children to high doses
of toxic x-rays.
"Every child who went into the shoe
store to buy new shoes would put his feet into the fluoroscope
so the bones could be seen," King recalled. "People
who worked in the store were exposed to the radiation all
day; children played games around the machine.
Now we realize it was a terrible thing
to do, but then it seemed perfectly normal.
Some day we
will wonder how we could ever have put such a toxic substance
into the human mouth."
Dental
Truth August 30, 2001
International
Fluoride Information Network Bulletin #347 August 31, 2001
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