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You may well ask: Childrens' amalgam study?
Did someone knowingly place mercury amalgam fillings in a child’s tooth to see IF the mercury (a known neurotoxin) MAY affect that child? Were the parents informed?
Yes, and these (more than one) studies were done without the consent of the parents or caregivers, or done on orphaned children.
Read Prof Haley's very easy to understand comments on the methodology and the results of the study (you do not need to have read the scientific article, but if you so wish, email us and we will send it to you.)
Unmasking The Unscientific JAMA 2006 Childrens Amalgam Study Response to the NIDCR Funded Children's Amalgam Testing publications in theJAMA 2006
By Boyd Haley, Ph.D. Professor of Chemistry at the University of Kentucky http://www.bioprobe.com/ReadNews.asp?article=95
Introduction: It is of considerable importance that those interested in the health of our children consider the fact that the level of mercury in blood, urine or faeces may be more a factor of the ability of the child to
excrete mercury than it is of total mercury exposure. For example, research has shown that autistic children represent a subset of the population that does not effectively excrete mercury and therefore has less mercury in the excretory materials but much more in the organs of their body.
Also, autistic children have been reported to have aberrant porphyrin profiles indicating they were mercury toxic from an early exposure to mercury and that these aberrant profiles returned towards normal when the
children were treated with mercury chelation procedures.
The inhibition of the porphyrin synthesis pathway inhibits the production of the final product, heme. Heme is used to bind and carry oxygen in the haemoglobin of blood. Heme is also a necessary component of the P-450 enzymes that are critical for detoxifying the body of pesticides, herbicides and other organic toxins.
Heme is also a critical factor for the ETS (electron transport system) of mitochondria where most of the energy (ATP) of the body is made. A report in the February issue of the PNAS established that heme is needed to flush beta-amyloid from the brain, if insufficient heme is present the beta-amyloid forms "large toxic clumps" called amyloid plaques, a major diagnostic hallmark of Alzheimer's disease.
These same amyloid plaques are regarded by many as the cause of Alzheimer's disease, but in reality the primary cause is toxins like mercury that prevent amyloid protein excretion. Therefore, mercury inhibition of the heme producing porphyrin pathway could have major effects secondary to the primary site of mercury inhibition. Previous publications by others have shown that adults exposed to dental amalgam mercury vapour have aberrant porphyrin profiles due to a polymorphism (CPOX4) which significantly modifies the effect of mercury exposure on urinary porphyrin excretion in humans.
Some were more affected than the majority indicating a genetic susceptibility of a subset of the population to mercury toxicity. This begs the question as to why wasn't the porphyrin profile data placed into these JAMA articles instead of being dismissed by the authors with only brief comments? It would be hard to explain how adults could be affected without seeing a similar affect in the children of these studies.
Below are some comments regarding these studies. Some relevant research publications regarding my comments are presented at the end of this summary.
1. In the first line of the Portugal based study entitled "Neurobehavioral Effects of Dental Amalgam in Children" Dr. Timothy A. DeRouen, et al. writes "dental amalgam ---emits small amounts of mercury vapour". This is not a scientific nor quantitative statement, i.e. what is a small amount of mercury? The exposure level of a toxin to any such study of this type is absolutely needed and this is totally ignored in these studies making any comments on safety by measuring the urine mercury levels totally invalid. The fact is these researchers are implanting into children a material that is 50% mercury and known to emit mercury vapours, but the question is how much mercury vapour are these children exposed to daily. Both the ADA and the FDA have steadfastly refused to address this question by doing the appropriate experiments and publishing them. My opinion (since I have done this) is that they know the level of mercury vapour emission from amalgams is to high to be accepted as safe, so they stonewall this critical experiment. Now it appears as if the IRB boards of several prestigious medical schools have been convinced to do the same. It is a dereliction of duty to place a toxic material into any patient, but especially a child, and especially if the level of toxic exposure is not defined.
2. It has been published and verified that over 90% of mercury excreted by humans leaves through the biliary transport system of the liver and is excreted in the faeces, not the urine. Urine mercury levels are well
documented not to reflect exposure under many conditions. Therefore, a major flaw in these studies published in JAMA is that they did not measure mercury using the appropriate faecal samples and, instead, used urine, which is a minimal excretion route and vastly underestimates the total mercury exposure. Also, most mercury excreted in the urine is that bound to cysteine or other soluble, small molecule sulphur containing compounds. Therefore, the urine mercury excretion levels are as much dependent on the blood levels of
cysteine or other compound as they are on mercury exposure. Cysteine levels are dependent on diet. The bottom line is that these studies looked for mercury in all the wrong places. One study reported that mercury in faecal materials was 13 times that in urine of the same patients. If you don't want to find data indicating excess exposure to mercury look where it isn't, look in the urine and that's what these studies did.
3. Since the IRB of several prestigious universities approved this research, i.e. research that exposed children to an unknown daily level of mercury vapour, the public should demand that these same universities perform experiments on the same brand of amalgams, made outside of the mouth, of known weight and surface area and determine the amount of mercury released per day by these amalgams (with and without abrasion to mimic the daily effects of chewing). They should publish these results. With this data a decent estimate of the daily exposure of the children to mercury from these amalgams can be made and an approximate determination of what fraction of the amount excreted in the urine accounts for the bulk of the mercury.
Studies done in my laboratory, similar to those done by others, have demonstrated that the emission of mercury vapours were much higher than what has been "estimated" by pro-amalgam individuals. Chew et al. Clinical Preventive Dentistry 13(3) 5-7, 1991, showed that in a study of long term dissolution of mercury from an non-mercury releasing amalgam it was determined that 43.5 microgram/cm2/day Hg was released and this remained constant for 2 years. What is also known is that different amalgam preparations release mercury at vastly different levels. The modern high copper amalgams were shown to release much higher levels than other older type amalgams.
4. Look at Figure 2 on page 1788 where the authors plot the urine mercury levels at each year. Years one and two show a steady increase in the amalgam bearers versus the amalgam free children as expected. Yet, on years 3 to 7 the level of mercury in the urine of the amalgam bearer continuously drop until they near the levels of the amalgam free children. The paper implies that restorative treatment was used in years 6, 7 and 8, which should increase, or at least maintain the urine mercury levels.
This needed explaining. In the Chew study above the amount of mercury released was steady for 2 years (the length of the study). Consider this, plus the fact that a 1gram filling would contain 500,000 micrograms of mercury, or 100,000 days of emitting a toxic 5 micrograms per day. This equates to about 275 years of mercury before it is all gone and the average life span of an amalgam before replacement is less than 10 years. Amalgams do not stop releasing mercury vapour within 7 years. So, what caused
the drop after year 2? Urine mercury levels are, in my opinion, a measure of the amount of mercury being excreted by this route. Therefore, after two years exposure the route of kidney excretion of mercury appears to be becoming less effective. This is consistent with the well known fact that increased mercury exposure inhibits it own excretion.
This data is quite damning of the idea that amalgams are safe to place in children. For example, youths die of idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (IDCM) while under physical stress in athletic events and it has been
published that the heart tissue of these individuals contains 178,400 ng/g mercury or 22,000 times more than was found in their muscle tissue or in the heart tissue of individuals that died of other forms of cardiac disease.
Another example, in the study published in J. Amer. Dental Assoc. regarding amalgams and Alzheimer's disease reported no correlations between amalgams and brain mercury levels were found. Yet, about 15% of the Nuns in this study had brain mercury levels in the micromolar range, a very toxic level of mercury since about 1,000 fold less than this has lethal effects on neurons in culture. Again, this reflects that certain individuals appear to have less ability to excrete mercury than others, even if they live in the same location and eat the same food, etc.
The point being, that mercury collects in certain tissues at levels much higher than have ever been found in blood, urine or hair and it is the primarily the retention of mercury (or the inability to excrete mercury) that enhances its toxicity from continuous, low level exposures. The bottom line, the data in their Figure 2 gives strong indication that after two years exposure to dental amalgam mercury the children seem to be losing
their ability to excrete mercury through their urine pathway, the major question is have they also lost the ability to excrete mercury through the major, faecal pathway? In contrast to the recommendations made by these authors this may be a major reason to discontinue placing amalgams in children.
5. These authors say very little about the porphyrin effects in the amalgam bearers except to state that they did not indicate kidney damage. This begs the real question, what about the children's ability to make heme, was the porphyrin profiles aberrant as found in adults exposed to amalgams or in autistic children? One has to question why this data was not included and discussed in detail.
6. It is well described in the literature that mercury is a potent immune system suppressor and others have detailed experiments that show this. Why was this easy to test system ignored in these studies? Experiments have shown that mercury exposure dramatically effects macrophage phagocytosis of microbes at very low levels. To choose to check effects on IQ over this period of exposure and ignore the immune system, especially when the immune system is known to be affected immediately on mercury exposure, is questionable. Especially, when the object of the study was to determine if mercury from amalgams were "safe" for use in children.
7. One of the inclusion criteria for these studies was "no interfering health conditions" and Dr. Bellinger, one of the authors, stated these interfering conditions included autism prior neurological disorders. The CDC
reports that 1 in 6 American children have a neurodevelopmental disorder, I am unaware of the rate in Portugal. However, these papers conclude that amalgams should remain a viable clinical option in dental restorative treatment and they did not exclude use on children with neurodevelopmental disorders, the type of child they excluded from their studies. I feel that I could make a very convincing argument that the children with prior neurological disorders are children who fall into the category of children who do not effectively excrete mercury. In this way the study has a major failing in that it excluded from the population being studied those children most susceptible to mercury toxicity.
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Conclusion: These studies were poorly designed and tell us one thing of good value. That children with amalgams most likely slowly lose their ability to excrete mercury after about two years of amalgam exposure. This experiment should have been done on primates, not humans and presents a question of ethics in medicine.
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The major problems with the studies is that they;
1. Ignored measuring the amount of mercury exposure to children by first determining the amount of mercury emitted from an average sized amalgam outside of the mouth.
2. Used urine and blood mercury levels when 90% plus of the mercury (that) is excreted (is) in the faeces. This obviates any conclusions they make, as urine mercury levels are unreliable with regards to exposure, which is exactlywhat their own data shows.
3. Did not select the most sensitive clinical testing parameters for detecting mercury toxicity but instead used testing parameters that areknown to fluctuate without known cause or parameters that require long-term
low level exposure to show an affect.
4. Did not state that their conclusions of amalgam safety should not include children with any prior neurodevelopmental or systemic illness.
5. Ignored the drop in mercury excretion in the urine after year 2 even though the mercury exposure from amalgams remained the same or increased. This is a sure sign of losing ability to excrete mercury with increased exposure to this toxic metal.
+ References at: http://www.aim.org/media_monitor/4575_0_2_0_C/ |
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