New Agendas in American Dentistry

With the ascension of managed health care in the 1990s, both medicine and dentistry have taken an invidious turn in this country. The fundamental reason is that medicine is no longer run by doctors and dentistry is no longer run by dentists. Or even by the AMA or the ADA. Now both professions have prostituted themselves to a higher entity – the insurance cartels, which are run today not by doctors, but by MBAs – corporate financiers.

All policies, billing procedures, all medical and dental decisions answer to one prime directive: profit. It’s certainly not a hidden conspiracy. These businesses enjoy success today because they do what corporations are designed to do: make money for their shareholders.

And it’s still growing: in 1992, 36% of Americans were under managed care. By 1996, it was up to 60%. (American Association of Health Plans) And today the figure is about 85%. (Singing the HMO Blues) As we all know, the new profit-driven industry has given birth to concepts like:

to keep services rendered to a minimum. In this way, HMOs can continue to pay their CEOs average salaries of $2 million per year, with some, like Steve Williams of Oxford Health, pulling down over $30 million per year. (Rose, also Fisher)

You may have noticed that HMOs filled the vacuum left by the failure of Bill and Hillary’s 1994 ‘health plan.’ Providing a very low level of doctor services to a large number of people, HMOs commonly

* deny expensive drugs
* deny expensive procedures
* force doctors and hospitals to accept lower and lower fees
* make every medical decision subject to approval by non-medical personnel

With all these problems, HMOs actually helped stem the double digit rise of yearly medical costs – for a few years. But with HMO premiums now going up at the rate of at least 9% per year, that honeymoon is over. (Lemov) We’re right back where we were before, with much lower standards of care.

In Conventional Medicine vs. Holistic, we have already seen how managed care has affected the overall health index of American people. The present chapter will briefly explore the implications of this same set-up for the ordinary American dental patient. We will concentrate on three topics:

I. SILVER FILLINGS AREN’T SILVER

Remember when you were a child and you went to the dentist, and you learned a new word: cavities. A hole had rotted its way into the enamel, and must now be drilled out and made better. And the answer to the problem was called a filling. And you may have begun to look in the mouths of your family and friends to see their fillings, and were thus reassured that this was normal because everyone had them done. And the metal used for fillings was silver in color and was generally referred to as silver. And the fact that silver is a precious metal was some small compensation for the discomfort of the drilling, because now you would be carrying around this precious metal permanently in your teeth.

And about this same time period perhaps you also were visited by the Tooth Fairy?

By definition, amalgam means alloy of two or more metals, one of which is mercury. (Dorland’s) In reality, dental amalgams are an alloy of several metals including silver, zinc, copper, tin, and mercury. Since mercury is the most volatile, being liquid at room temperature, it is an excellent binder for the entire amalgam. In most dental amalgams, mercury makes up about 50% of the material, while silver is only 30%. (Lorscheider) So you see, silver fillings are really mercury fillings.

The problem with mercury is its toxicity to human cells, especially the brain cells, the gut cells, and the liver. By itself, mercury is classified as a Hazardous Substance by the EPA, and is considered a powerful poison, 5000 times more toxic than lead. (Basciano) If your kid drops a mercury thermometer at school, the room has to be evacuated and the Biohazards Team has to be called in. (Hansen) Mercury is the most toxic metal there is that is not radioactive. (Ziff) Doctors and researchers have known about mercury toxicity since the early 1800s.

All systems of the body operate through the actions of two complex protein substances: enzymes and hormones. Unfortunately, mercury has a special affinity for both because of their component sulfhydryl groups. Mercury can denature enzymes and inactivate hormones, causing dysfunction of any system in an unpredictable and untraceable manner. The Great Masquerader.

We reviewed mercury toxicity in some detail in the chapter on autism and vaccines. (www.thedoctorwithin.com ) You may remember some of the effects of mercury toxicity –

— Sallie Bernard

Since it affects so many systems, often with a delayed reaction of 10 or 20 years because of its 25-year half life, mercury poisoning is known as the Great Masquerader. (Ziff, p 41) If these problems appear later in life, the physician will have no clue as to the true cause.

Other fun facts about mercury poisoning are

HOW’D THIS AMALGAM BUSINESS ALL GET STARTED?

Looking into the history of amalgams is most illuminating. In the 1830s there were two groups of dentists in America: those favoring mercury amalgams and those opposed to it. Those not in favor of amalgam – the American Society of Dental Surgeons – disliked amalgam’s tendency to fracture teeth as it expanded in fillings. Nor were they happy with the idea of mercury’s side effects, like insanity (Mad Hatter’s Disease) and loss of motor function from nerve damage. (Bernard)

So the Society pledged never to use amalgam for fillings. (Lorscheider) The Society actually referred to those dentists who used mercury as ‘quacks’ – short for quackenslaver – the German word for mercury. And that is the origin of this derogatory medical term. (Hansen, p. 40) The name of that other group, the one using mercury? The American Dental Association.

From the 1830s till the 1850s, the controversy continued. Membership in the Society slowly declined as amalgam became more popular, since it was cheaper and easier to use than other filling materials. Mercury amalgam fillings could be offered at an affordable price for the largest number of people.

By 1859, the Society of American Dental Surgeons had faded out, edged out by the champion of mercury fillings: the American Dental Association. It is worth noting that the ADA’s original unifying principle was that amalgam was safe and effective – the idea is in the ADA’s collective DNA. When it was discovered that adding tin solved the expansion problem, that was all she wrote. Since that time, the composition of the amalgam alloy has remained almost exactly the same.

No opposition. This must be why in its 125-year existence, the ADA has never funded one single human safety study of mercury amalgams. They never even tried to find out! (Ziff, p 24) But the ADA’s members are pledged never to mention anything about mercury toxicity to patients. And in an ironic reversal, by the 1980s the ADA had worked up the temerity to refer to any dentist who would suggest amalgam removal as a “quack.” (Hansen, p 42)

Then in 1990, a very thorough scientific study was completed by F.L. Lorscheider and colleagues. (Hansen, p 46) In their meticulously designed experiment using sheep as subjects, they measured kidney concentrations of mercury following amalgam placement in teeth. A few of their findings:

* Each amalgam filling releases about 10 mcg of mercury per day into the body

* Mercury crosses the placenta

* Mercury causes autoimmunity

* Mercury can make bacteria resistant to antibiotics

* Mercury can impair fertility

* 12 amalgam fillings impaired kidney function by 50%

* Some 70,000 kg of amalgams are placed into the mouths of Americans each year. That’s enough for over 100 million fillings.

This landmark experiment laid to rest the ADA’s long-standing contention that mercury was somehow magically stable once placed in a filling, and could not leach into the body. Amazingly however, such a claim is still sometimes heard even these days. Their proof? 150 years of use. That’s it! Incredibly, they’ve never made any clinical toxicity studies of mercury amalgams in all that time.

The National Institute for Science, Law, and Public Policy now has an extensive and well researched website in which scientific journal articles have provided abundant research that:

– Mercury amalgams can impair kidney function (Boyd)
– Mercury amalgams promote abnormal bacteria in the mouth and in the colon (Summers)
– Mercury amalgams can promote cardiac dysfunction (Frustaci)

So if mercury can do all this damage, the question then becomes

HOW MUCH IS DANGEROUS?

Mercury comes to humans through seafood, the air, accidental environmental exposure, through vaccines and through mercury amalgams. Fully two-thirds of all that exposure is due to mercury amalgams. (Aposhian)

The World Health Organization came to the same conclusion in Geneva, Switzerland meetings in 1991: mercury from amalgams is the #1 source for human contamination:

source ……. micrograms per day

Amalgams ____ 3 – 17

Seafood ______ 2.3
Other food ____ 0.3
Air ________ traces
Water _______ traces

– Environmental Health Criteria 118

Although mercury from vaccines can reach as high as 78 micrograms per day, that’s only on the day of the shot. (Bernard) This puts dental amalgams way out ahead for overall lifetime mercury exposure.

The New England Journal of Medicine agreed. In its 18 Oct 90 issue, mercury in amalgams was described as

“the chief source of exposure [to mercury] of a large segment of the US population.”

These are standard findings corroborated by dozens of other researchers. It is impossible to do the most cursory investigation into mercury without repeatedly running across these same facts. That is why the current stated position on mercury amalgams by the ADA is so fantastically extravagant, and evasive:

– Journal of the American Dental Association Dec 1987

“The strongest and most convincing support we have for the safety of dental amalgam is the fact that each year more than 100 million amalgam fillings are placed in the United States. And since amalgam has been used for more than 150 years, literally billions of amalgam fillings have been successfully used to restore decayed teeth.”

– Journal of the American Dental Association April 1990

Hard to argue with scientific data like that. That’s the same line that’s been used with every fatal medical drug or procedure that’s ever been recalled from use, right up until the day they pulled it. Although they constantly refer to “research” proving the safety of mercury amalgams without ever citing any, the ADA now contents itself with the old “that’s the way we’ve always done it” defense. They ignore all current research on mercury toxicity from hundreds of scientific sources, and try to assure patients that mercury is safe and harmless.

It is equally incomprehensible that the EPA has ruled that mercury and all its compounds are not safe and may not be sold in OTC drugs, and are to regarded as Hazardous Materials, with the single exception of dental amalgams! In this application, inches from the human brain, mercury is supposedly harmless! (Ziff p 37) What’s wrong with this picture?

In congressional hearings in the spring of 00, Representative Dan Burton wants to know why, if mercury is such a hazardous material that special cleanup crews are summoned when any is spilled, why do we think it’s safe to put in our mouths? (Burton)

Even when they admit the ‘rare’ cases of damage from mercury amalgams, the ADA employs Orwellian phrasing about ‘sensitivity’ rather than calling it toxicity or poisoning. See how languaging is everything? If the issue is sensitivity, then the damage or illness is due to some weakness of the patient. It’s his fault; it’s not that he’s being poisoned. Nothing to do with the ADA’s responsibilities as guardians of the patient’s health.

THE ADA’S REAL AGENDA

In their carefully packaged PR image, the ADA routinely tries to pawn itself off as the defender of American people’s dental health. But when pushed in a court of law to state the parameters of their own professional and ethical obligations to patients, the ADA showed its true colors:

“The ADA owes no legal duty of care to protect the public from allegedly dangerous products used by dentists. The ADA did not manufacture, design, supply or install the mercury-containing amalgams. The ADA does not control those who do. The ADA’s only alleged involvement in the product was to provide information regarding its use. Dissemination of information relating to the practice of dentistry does not create a duty of care to protect the public from potential injury.”

Source: Legal brief filed in 1995 by attorneys for the ADA in W.H. Tolhurst vs. Johnson and Johnson Consumer Products, Inc.; Engelhard Corporation; ABE Dental, Inc.; the American Dental Association, et al., in the Superior Court of the State of California, in and for the County of Santa Clara, CA, Case No. 718228.

Thanks, guys. Always looking out for our best interests, right? They refuse to investigate mercury toxicity because it’s been used for so long, and then they state that they really have no responsibility to protect patients from poisons! Very progressive attitude – really lends itself to a high standard of ethical research, don’t you think? Is it really asking too much for the profession who has the legal right to drill and cut in people’s mouths to try and keep current on the safest, most up to date information about the materials they place in the mouth?

No matter what you may hear from your dentist or anyone else, the scientific literature shows over and over that mercury amalgams are not stable once a filling is set. Instead, mercury

“is constantly released from amalgams, mainly as mercury vapour, which is inhaled, absorbed, metabolized to ionic mercury, and distributed throughout the body.”

“Dental amalgam is the major source of the body mercury burden. Toxicological research on amalgam mercury has indicated deleterious effects on the immune, renal, reproductive and central nervous systems, and oral and intestinal bacteria. Research does not indicate that amalgam fillings are safe.”

– AR Hibberd, Journal of Natural and Environmental Medicine Sep 98

In his study of chelating agents for removal of mercury from the body, Hibberd summarizes several decades of research. Among his findings:

* A person with 8 fillings releases 120 Mug of mercury into the mouth every day. As much as 17 Mug of that gets absorbed into the body. In its vapor form the mercury is fat soluble, and favors lungs and mucus membranes at first. Then it crosses tissue barriers, including the blood brain barrier ands also the placenta. Mercury then accumulates in the brain, the gut, and the liver.

The ADA cites a few studies that show the absence of mercury in the blood and urine, and therefore conclude that amalgams are safe and do not leak mercury. Hibberd explains how blood and urine are poor indicators of mercury poisoning, because of accumulation in target tissues.

The areas of the brain that mercury favors are those involved with memory (amygdala and hippocampus). So here we see it’s not just aluminum that is implicated in Alzheimer’s, like we’re always hearing. Hibberd goes on to show the dangers of accumulating mercury with respect to

The largest study of amalgam toxicity ever done took place at the University of Tübingen in Germany in 1995. With over 20,000 subjects, this study showed conclusively that mercury from amalgams is continually released in quantities large enough to be identified in the saliva. The designer of the study, Dr. Peter Krauss, noted that in some patients the amount of mercury in saliva could be as high as 100 times the WHO ‘safe’ level. (Krauss)

Citing studies proving toxicity from dental amalgams could go on all day. To find more, an easy reference is Ziff’s book Dentistry Without Mercury in which dozens of studies are listed. Also Hansen’s The Key to Ultimate Health is loaded with studies of mercury toxicity. For the average reader, the point has been made: abundant scientific proof exists that mercury vapors are slowly emitted from dental amalgams for years, and are inhaled and ingested into the body. They are bioaccumulative within the cells of many tissues. Many diseases and disorders have been positively correlated with these levels of mercury.

One of these is Multiple Sclerosis. There was a 1987 study showing that the levels of mercury in the spinal fluid of MS patients was 8 times higher than normal. (Silberod) Mercury has long been linked to autoimmune diseases like MS because of its affinity to attach to collagen tissue, which is the most common protein in the body. Polluted by mercury infiltration, the collagen is seen by the immune system as ‘not self.’

A study appeared in 1994 proving that mercury from amalgams could cross the placental barrier, toxifying unborn infants from the mercury in their mothers’ own mouths. (Sehnert)

After all this research in the early 1990s, many countries in Europe now forbid dental amalgams. Sweden outlawed their use in 1997. Denmark, Austria, and Germany followed soon thereafter. (Hansen, p 49)

California dentists are now required by law to inform their patients about the toxicity of mercury amalgams. (Hansen p 50 )

We saw the overwhelming medical research on the toxicity of mercury in the chapters titled: Autism and Vaccines, and also in Autism and Mercury: The San Diego Conference. (www.thedoctorwithin.com) As cited therein, mercury from vaccines has devastating effects on the central nervous system. But the amount of toxic mercury absorbed from amalgam fillings is much greater, due primarily to the constant breathing in of the vapors of mercury arising from the amalgams fillings in the mouth.

WHOLE BODY DETOX

The 1980s saw the rise of a small industry specializing in the treatment of cancer by natural means, excluding the traditional chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery. (www.thedoctorwithin.com) The alternative or holistic approaches to cancer treatment have included a wide variety of methods, with varying degrees of success and superstition. But one commonality among these natural cancer cures is an emphasis on detoxification: the clearing out of toxic materials that may have been stored in the body for years in

Many effective holistic methods have been brought forth over the years for accomplishing detox in each of these locations, along with many ineffective or even harmful remedies. But one method of detox that is always cited in the majority of holistic protocols for whole body cleansing is the removal of amalgam fillings.

SHOULD I REPLACE MY AMALGAMS?

Programs of holistic detoxification worldwide for years have been recommending amalgam removal for total body detox. Recognizing this as an economic threat, the ADA’s official stance has not changed since Sept 1984:

“The Association wishes to emphasize that there is no reason why a patient should seek to have amalgam restorations (silver fillings) removed. Indeed, the effect of such a procedure could be detrimental to the patient’s oral health, including the unnecessary loss of teeth, and cannot be justified.” (NIDR, JADA, 1984)

See the trick? “Silver fillings.” Pretty slick, huh? And the posturing about being the guardian of American dental health. The art of persuasion and image-making. Is anyone noticing that dentists remove amalgams every single day and replace them with more amalgam? But that’s not dangerous, right? It’s only dangerous if they replace the old mercury filling with white composite? Come on!

Many dentists will remove amalgam if the patient requests it. The problem is that not all are qualified. As Dr. Hansen explains in some detail, the dangers of inhaling and ingesting old mercury during the amalgam removal process can cause extremely serious complications if attempted by a neophyte. In his book The Key To Ultimate Health, Hansen also outlines the other services a holistic or ‘biologic’ dentist can provide:

In the burgeoning field of holistic dentistry, Hansen modernizes the pioneering ideas of Weston Price and Hal Huggins. One idea is to minimize or eliminate drilling. Hansen explains very thoroughly the anatomy of teeth and the unnecessary long-term destruction that is afforded by excessive drilling. Even small cavities often involve a great portion of the tooth to be ground away in order to provide a large enough surface for the amalgam or adhesive to stick to. Instead of working wherever possible to preserve the structural integrity of the teeth and jaw, standard dentistry seems to have focused more on maximizing the invasiveness of the procedure.

The idea that most root canals are unnecessary and that an inflamed nerve should be cleaned and given a chance to heal – these notions seem revolutionary, but have really been around for decades. Hansen explains that most adult dental work is not the result of tooth decay from refined carbohydrates, but rather is necessitated by cracked and broken and leaking amalgams which have broken the teeth down and provided places for pockets of bacterial fermentation to take place.

Hansen’s alternative to drilling is largely the use of special lasers which can vaporize decay with “pinpoint accuracy” and sterilize the area at the same time, without massive destruction by drilling. Instead of toxic amalgam filling materials, Hansen employs biocompatible glass filler, which permits overgrowth of original dentin and bone, thereby providing a stable, permanent seal. Using an argon laser, the tooth and the glass filling material are then bonded permanently together. As for root canals, Hansen explains that they can usually be avoided, again with the use of laser disinfection and bio-friendly injected glass fillings.

It’s amazing reading a book like Hansen’s for the first time, and to learn how little most people know about their teeth or about standard dental procedures to which they have been submitting all their lives. Though still in its infancy, holistic dentistry seems to be opening up a level of awareness from which there can be no return.

No more crowns or root canals? No more amalgams? I’m sure the ADA is gonna love these new holistic cowboys. Imagine the economic considerations. Yet for the first time perhaps, the focus is on the long-term health of the patient rather than following the doctrinaire pronouncements of a pseudo-religious trade union that has been posing as a regulatory agency for the past century. Hansen reminds us that all professions exist primarily for the clients they serve, and not vice versa.

For a reality check, such innovations are not just going to suddenly replace traditional dental procedures overnight. There will be a lot of variability of insurance coverage for these new procedures. Many of them will have to be paid for directly those patients who have been sufficiently educated to appreciate their value long term. It is the enlightened patient who will elect to pay for a procedure which his policy doesn’t cover, one who sees the paramount importance of trying to save his teeth, omit excess drilling and root canals, and avoid amalgams.

II. PRE-MEDICATION – MBAs RUNNING THE SHOW

The second area where we discover a serious problem with modern American dentistry is the profligate use of antibiotics.

Remember that in the chapter entitled The Post-Antibiotic Age (www.thedoctorwithin.com) we learned that the biggest medical problem in this century, according to many mainstream medical authorities, may well be antibiotic resistance. Because of decades of overprescription and overuse of antibiotics for every little cold and sniffle, we have created hundreds of species of Superbugs – bacteria that can’t be killed by any known antibiotics. We have molded bacteria into those resistant mutations, because the only ones that survived were the ones the drugs couldn’t kill. Ten of thousands of Americans are dying in hospitals every year because they have some infection that doesn’t respond to any known antibiotic. One reason the future doesn’t look bright is that in the past 15 years, no truly new antibiotics have been invented. The new ones that have come out are just derivations or modifications of the ones we’ve had for years and years.

But most people don’t know this. Most mothers don’t know it. That’s why they keep taking their children to the doctor at the first sign of the slightest sniffle or redness of ears. And if the doctor doesn’t prescribe antibiotics, the parent thinks the doctor’s not doing his job. So the parent takes the kid next door to whatever doctor will give the prescription. And most parents don’t even know that antibiotics don’t work on viral infections, which is what most colds involve.

Into this whole mess, enter the dentist. It is an odd fact that as much as 30% of dental patients are given a single ‘bombing’ dose of amoxicillin before any routine dental work. Why? Politics and money. The big scare is – we have the American Heart Association’s proclamation that there is a “risk” of a dental patient picking up bacteria that may cause a rare heart disease called Subacute Bacterial Endocarditis when the gums are made to bleed during the dental procedures. In reality, catching the disease following dental work is not quite that simple.

The first problem is that the bleeding gums are not sufficient themselves to cause SBE. Most damage to gums following dental work is in the form of a mild, self-limiting inflammation, possibly with a little momentary bleeding. To cause SBE, the gums must become infected from the dental work, and that is rare. Secondly, the infective bacteria must travel through the blood and decide to set up shop on the heart valves. For this to happen, the valves generally must be abnormal to begin with. (Merck Manual, p. 1763) Not a very likely scenario, but possible.

Such bacteria could also come from gastric or urinary infections; the dental trauma is just one possibility.

So to prevent this one-in-a-million occurrence, the AHA and the malpractice insurance people have got the American Dental Association to proclaim that it’s a good idea for the patient to get a “precautionary” dose of antibiotics “just in case.” So they make out a list of “risk” patients who should be given the antibiotic. These include patients with

* Valve replacements
* History of SBE
* Surgical shunts in heart
* Rheumatic heart disease
* Mitral valve prolapse
* Enlarged heart
* Any heart irregularity

– American Heart Association, June 1997

In addition, anyone who has had any joint replacements, pins, or plates surgically implanted is also given the single dose of amoxicillin prior to dental procedures. Even though the ADA’s own Guide to Dental Therapeutics, Appendix E states that such implants are not an indication for single dose of “just in case” antibiotics, in actual practice, these patients are routinely given the antibiotic. Ask your dentist if this is true. And in most cases patients have come to expect it. So even those dentists who think it’s a bad idea to pass out all these antibiotics, usually just cave in and go along with what the patients expect. This insane state of affairs persists even though everyone knows that a single dose of amoxicillin couldn’t possibly prevent or cure either SBE or infection from a prosthetic implant.

Why not? Because according to Merck, standard courses of antibiotics for SBE range from 2 to 6 weeks. (17th Edition, p. 1767) Much worse than a placebo, these single ‘bomb’ doses do nothing except contribute to antibiotic resistance:

“Inadequate doses promote the development of resistance; thereafter, even greatly increased doses may fail to control the infection.”

– Merck, p 1103

What’s happening here is that because of politics and insurance guidelines, which are set up by non-medical people, dentists are indiscriminately prescribing antibiotics far in excess of the recommendations of the antibiotic manufacturers themselves. That’s what the Merck Manual is – manufacturer guidelines. Like the medical doctor, struggling to keep abreast of HMO commandments for prescribing drugs, dentists too have been cast into this role of drug rep for the Big Boys.

People are brainwashed. Even when the dentist is not inclined to give the antibiotic because he knows it won’t have any possible benefit, the patients are so used to getting their pill, that they’ll expect it. And they’ll probably think the dentist is being remiss if he forgets to offer it. Easier for the dentist to just go along with the program. Nobody’s going to object.

The discoverer of penicillin, the first antibiotic, was Alexander Fleming. From the very beginning, Fleming saw immediately the danger of abuse and overprescription of penicillin. (The Post Antibiotic Age) Fleming saw the that these powerful antibiotic drugs were for one thing only: life-threatening bacterial infections. Though largely ignored, this principle still holds true today.

III. THE FLUORIDE SCAM

In the Water chapter we saw tons of referenced information on the stupidity of adding fluoride to city water systems. We also uncovered the important role played by the American Dental Association in promoting the lie that fluoride protects teeth.

In that chapter, meticulous documentation is offered to support these facts:

– the fluoride added to city water is a chemical byproduct of aluminum, steel, cement, phosphate, and nuclear weapons manufacturing

– fluoride is the active toxin in rat poison

– fluoride ages humans and destroys organ systems be tearing down enzymes which are essential for these systems to operate:

– fluoride can turn normal human cells into foreign protein, triggering the autoimmune response, causing things like lupus, arthritis, asthma, and arteriosclerosis

– fluoride is more poisonous than lead and just less poisonous than arsenic

– a seven ounce tube of toothpaste contains enough fluoride to theoretically kill a small child

– city water is fluoridated at 1 Part per million. This is enough to destroy the DNA in human enzymes by 50%

– fluoride ages people by collagen breakdown

– fluoride confuses mineralization, putting minerals where they don’t belong, in ligaments tendons and muscles, and pulling minerals out of where they do belong, like bones and teeth

– the reason most people don’t know these scientifically indisputable facts is because of decades of disinformation from the EPA and the USPHS, whose members have close ties with the aluminum industry.

When teeth are demineralized, for whatever reason, doctors call this dental fluorosis. Teeth get that mottled, spotted look and are prone to crumble. The odd truth is that there is far more scientific documentation proving that fluoride causes dental fluorosis than there is proving it protects teeth. Before 1950, the ADA’s own research documented the hazards of fluoride exposure. One example from Journal of the American Dental Association 1 Oct 44:

“the potentialities for harm far outweigh those for good”

and the article clearly associated fluoridated water with osteoporosis, goiter, and spinal disease.

Also in the 1940s, an attorney named Oscar Ewing was hired by ALCOA, the world’s biggest manufacturer of aluminum. Remember, fluoride is a toxic byproduct in that industry. OK. Now follow this: the United States Public Health Service was a branch of the government agency known as the Federal Security Administration. The USPHS made policies about water safety. So guess who was suddenly promoted to the Federal Security Administration? Oscar Ewing! This is how ALCOA came to dictate water safety policy in the US.

But they needed a spin doctor to get the AMA, the American Dental Association, and the general public to believe that a dangerous industrial poison like fluoride could actually have a health benefit. So whom did Ewing appoint in charge of PR, to help him persuade people? Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud!

Bernays’ propaganda machine now went into full swing – ads with smiling children with beautiful teeth flooded the country’s media. All anti-fluoride studies and articles were systematically suppressed because they weren’t sanctioned by the big lobbyists for the aluminum and fertilizer industries. Tons of new literature written not by doctors and scientists but by PR people and psychologists portrayed those opposing the sacred fluoridation as right-wing wackos. (Miller)

Dovetailing contemporaneously into all the above activity is some mind-blowing information that was uncovered in 1998 by two reporters commissioned to write an article for the Christian Science Monitor. Working from secret government documents that had just become declassified, Joel Griffiths and Chris Bryson have illuminated another very scary liaison: fluoride and the Manhattan Project.

As we all remember, the Manhattan Project was the WWII secret program which brought the atomic bomb into existence: Fat Man and Little Boy. Turns out fluoride was a key component in the production of this bomb, in two main applications: in the uranium complex itself, and also as a toxic waste material. (Fluoride & Brain Damage)

No one can intelligently discuss the fluoridation of American water without coming to grips with the research of John Yiamouyiannis, PhD. His book Fluoride the Aging Factor is a history of all pertinent literature about the politics and science of fluoridation up until 1993. Dr Y uncovered virtually every scientific study of fluoride ever undertaken and patiently shows how the huge aluminum companies like ALCOA as well as the nuclear arms manufacturers used political influence to legislate a toxic waste into our water supply, disguised as a health supplement.

Dr Y points out that the US fluoridation is the highest in the world, at 62% of all cities. Few other countries are this stupid; in Europe fluoridation is less than 2%.

Dr Y explains how scientists discovered that fluoride causes osteoporosis the same way it causes dental fluorosis, or crumbling of the teeth. Fluoride destroys the enzymes necessary to build bones and teeth. In addition, fluoride precipitates calcium out of solution, robbing the bones and teeth to get it, thereby creating a true calcium deficiency. (Riggs)

Extensive research has also proven beyond a doubt that fluoride in water is a carcinogen, with studies form 19 major universities showing the connection. (Dr Y, p 65)

Dr Y is not alone. Chief chemist of the National Cancer Institute, Dr. Dean Burk, when confronted with mountains of the same data, stated before Congress:

“In point of fact, fluoride causes more human cancer death, and causes it faster than any other chemical.”

– Congressional Record 21 July 1976

Together Burk and Dr Y completed a national research project on fluoride and cancer. They found that:

– Yiamouyiannis. p 90

So where does the American Dental Association come in? Is it possible they don’t know any of this? Of course they do. Again, don’t be deluded into believing that the ADA accepts responsibility for American dental health. Always remember – the ADA is a trade union, a lobby whose main purpose is furthering the economic advancement of its members. It doesn’t represent dental health. And in many cases the ADA doesn’t represent the dentists themselves. This is especially true in the class action suit filed by some 40 dentists against the ADA in a DC Superior Court. The charges? Ethical breach of the public trust for recommending fluoridation while failing to inform its members and the public of the widespread available literature proving toxicity. (Foulkes)

The American Dental Association has a website which is a masterpiece of disinformation: www.ada.org. At the beginning of the Fluoridation Questions section, we find the standard fluoridiot disinformation posture in which natural fluoride compounds that exist in many places in nature are presented as the same fluoride which is added to municipal water. This is unmitigated, deliberate, fraudulent misrepresentation. The fluoride added to water is a toxic industrial byproduct in a form nature could never have come up with. Once you realize this simple fact, you will be able to see the rest of the Website Whitewash in its proper light.

While you are reading the sections of this website, just remember that the ADA is a trade lobby, whose mission is to assure people of the safety and efficacy of a drug that is not safe and not effective, so that the interests of its fellow trade lobbies from the chemical industry are best served. The ADA is a mouthpiece for a huge constituency. Their website is the modern manifestation of Edward L. Bernays’ program of disinformation and crowd control.

WHAT DO THE REAL EXPERTS SAY ABOUT FLUORIDATION?

“When historians come to write about this period, they will single out [fluoridation] as the single biggest mistake in public policy that we’ve ever had.”
– Paul Connett, PhD, Biochemistry

“Water fluoridation is the single largest case of scientific fraud, promoted by the government, supported by taxpayer dollars, aided and abetted by the ADA and the AMA, in the history of the planet.”
– David Kennedy, DDS President International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology

“Sodium fluoride is a registered rat poison and roach poison. It has been a protected pollutant for a very long time.”
– William Hirzy, PhD President of the Union of Professional Employees of the EPA

“Sodium fluoride is a very toxic chemical, acting as an enzyme poison, direct irritant and calcium inactivator. It reacts with growing tooth enamel and with bones to produce irreversible damage.”
– Granville Knight, MD president of the American Academy of Nutrition
Congressional Record, 31 July 56 (Robotry, p. 22)

“I am appalled at the prospect of using water as a vehicle for drugs. Fluoride is a corrosive poison that will produce serious effects on a long range basis. Any attempt to use water this way is deplorable.”
– Charles Gordon Heyd, MD, president, AMA

“No physician in his right mind would hand to his patient a bottled filled with a dangerous drug with instructions to take as much or as little of it as he wished. And yet, the Public Health Service is engaged upon a widespread propaganda program to insist that communities do exactly that. The purpose of administering fluoride is not to render the water supply pure and potable but to contaminate it with a dangerous, toxic drug for the purpose of administering mass medication to the consumer, without regard to age or physical condition.”
– L. Alesen, MD, president of the California Medical Association
Robotry, p14

“Fluoridation is the greatest fraud that has ever been perpetrated and it has been perpetrated on more people than any other fraud has.”
– Albert Schatz, PhD Nobel Laureate for discovering streptomycin
quoted in Sutton’s Fluoridation: The Greatest Fraud

“More people have died in the last 30 years from cancer connected with fluoridation than all the military deaths in the entire history of the United States.”
– Dean Burk, PhD National Cancer Institute
Fluoridation: A Burning Controversy

“Fluoridation is the greatest case of scientific fraud of this century, if not of all time.”
– EPA scientist, Dr. Robert Carton (Downey, 2 May 99

)

Although the ADA knows the above information very well, as a political machine, it is dissuaded from publicly changing its mind for two reasons:

* credibility
* liability

If the ADA came out with a statement today that said, oh yeah, fluoride actually is a dangerous poison, the cause of many diseases – what would that mean with reference to their sacred contentions over the past several decades about fluoride’s safety and benefit for dental health? Admit they were wrong? See how the ADA is in the ridiculous position of being locked into a grave scientific error, because of lawyers and insurance companies? Once the reader comes to grips with this fact, pronouncements from this trade lobby may be seen in their proper perspective.

_____________

As with most of the chapters from www.thedoctorwithin.com, the above information is just a cursory look at some practices in modern American dentistry, which are not apparent in Canada or in Europe. True advances in science and in dentistry would be shared across international boundaries, one would hope. But current dental policies in this country regarding the above three topics – amalgams, antibiotics, and fluoride – are not grounded or directed by science.

It’s the same behavior pattern that locked Galileo in the Tower of Pisa for discovering that the earth went around the sun, or that buried the work of Bechamp in favor of the theories of Pasteur, or that force holistic cancer clinics to operate in Tijuana, or that prevents your dentist from discussing these issues openly with you – it’s all about big money and government and keeping the truth from people in a systematic fashion. Create the Conventional Wisdom, and then maintain it by endless repetition in every media source possible.

The other side of the coin is that small groups of dentists are quietly coming together and beginning to offer a range of services which are non-toxic and natural. As the average patient becomes more informed about mercury toxicity, unnecessary root canals and extractions, and the dangers of single dose antibiotics, such groups of holistically minded dentists are going to be strategically poised for that next little evolution in dental health – throwing off the oppressive sludge of systematic poisoning that has enslaved the American ‘consciousness’ for the past century.

*****

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Frustaci A, et al. —- Department of Cardiology, Catholic University, Rome, Italy. “Marked elevation of myocardial trace elements in idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy compared with secondary cardiac dysfunction.” J Am Coll Cardiol 1999 May;33(6):1578-83

Summers, A.O, et al. —- “Mercury Released from Dental “Silver” Fillings Provokes an Increase in Mercury and Antibiotic – Resistant Bacteria in Oral and Intestinal Flora of Primates” Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy April 1993 p 825 – 834.

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Silberod, R —- A comparison of mental health of multiple sclerosis patients with silver/mercury dental fillings
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DAMS Inc —– Mercury Free and Healthy: The Dental Amalgam Issue
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UK Amalgam page —- www.amalgam.ukgo.com

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New Agendas in American Dentistry

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