long OT: CA Dental Board hearings

[Guest guest]

From: Kennedy DDS & lt;davidkennedy-dds@... & gt; " Kennedy,

DDS " & lt;davidkennedy-dds@... & gt;Dear Friends,I was just thinking over the

amazing events of the last 24 hours and had to share with you some of what I saw

and heard.Yesterday, November 7th at the LAX Embassy Suites Hotel in Los Angeles

the California Dental Board held an informational hearing regarding the veracity

of their existing dental fact sheet. The question asked was, What scientific

evidence, if any, exists that suggests that there are health risks for pregnant

women, children, and diabetics from mercury in dental amalgams? The present fact

sheet states; The research literature in peer-reviewed scientific journals

suggests that otherwise healthy women, children and diabetics are not at

increased risk for exposure to mercury from dental amalgams. Read the whole

mishmash of innuendo and misstatements on the Dental Board web page.

http://www.dbc.ca.gov/news.htmlBoth sides were represented by distinguished

experts. The pro-unlimited-mercury-exposure-and-use side was presented by Harold

Slavkin, DDS the current Dean of the University of Southern California Dental

School and Alton Lacy, DDS Professor of dental materials at the University of

California San Francisco. The voice of caution and concern was aptly represented

by Boyd Haley, PhD Head of the Department of Chemistry at the University of

Kentucky and Fritz Lorscheider, PhD. Dr. Lorscheider is now Professor Emeritus

University of Calgary, Canada School of Medicine and former head of the

Department of Medical Physiology. Their latest research has linked mercury to

rapid neuron death at levels well below that found in the CSF of amalgam

bearers. That research was published in Neuroreports and can be seen on their

web sight. http://www.neuroreport.com/ 30mar01. I also found the entire paper on

this web sight. I don't know what www.mindfully.org is or their policies are but

they have the paper and video posted on their sight.

http://www.mindfully.org/Health/Mercurcy-Exposure-Nerves.htmEach speaker was

given just 30 minutes to make their point. At California Dental Board member

Chet Yokoyama's request, I furnished all of the audio visual projection

equipment and he brought his VCR from home. We showed power point, both IBM and

Mac, the neuron degeneration video and slides too. Ray Blavatt, my good friend

and the video editor on the " Smoking Teeth Poison Gas! " video, made a complete

video record of the meeting. Both Drs. Lorscheider and Haley gave magnificently

precise and scientific presentations where facts were stated as such and

references from the peer-reviewed scientific literature were supplied.Dr.

Lorscheider took great pains to address the board with the utmost respect and

explained the research protocols he has followed for the last 17 years. He

reviewed the earlier work in sufficient detail for the board to see that a

considerable body of evidence exist that mercury leaks from set dental amalgam

and that it transfers across placenta and gets into the fetus. He showed the

work of Aposhian and Echeverria and the higher mercury levels in amalgam bearers

after DMPS challenge. He concluded his balanced presentation with the

Neuroreports video. Dr. Alan Kay BOD President asked why there was more

statistical variation in the levels of mercury found in the students with

amalgam (n 10) than the controls without amalgam (n 10). Dr. Lorscheider

patiently explained the wide variation that people experience when exposed to

mercury and even DMPS. Some absorb a great deal and excrete it poorly while

others are good excreters and do not accumulate it as much. He then went on to

explain that even with the variation in findings the results were highly

statistically significant. He added that the later work with dentist ( over

1,000) found the same results and neurological impairment of dentists.Dr.

Slavkin used much of his time telling us about his past teaching positions and

his jobs with the government. He is the former head of the National Institute

for Dental and Cranial Facial Research. He then cited the dental review

conclusions from the 1993 US PHS panel and the WHO dental panel as though they

constituted a significant contribution to the discussion. Then Dr. Slavkin

unfortunately lost his place while in his Power Point presentation and couldn t

seem to get it to work. Dr. Haley graciously got him up and going again and put

him back on the right slide. Dr. Slavkin went on to explain that we needed

prospective studies of humans to be able to say for certain if amalgams cause

any problem and that such studies were underway as we speak. (Personally I d

like to see the minutes of the Medical Review Board that Oks prospective studies

of neurological impairment in children. I wouldn t allow it to be done to my

children, if I had any.) He also pointed out that retrospective studies have so

far failed to uncover any problems. Dr. Yokoyama pierced the vale of authority

and asked a simple question. Something we were all to afraid to do with the

professors 30 years ago. He simply asked Dr. Slavkin if the controls in the

retrospective study also had amalgams. After some stammering the good doctor did

acknowledge that there were no controls without amalgams but went on to claim

that having just a few amalgams was just as good . . . well almost. So much for

his science.Dr. Haley was at his finest. He dazzled them with his metabolic

pathways, bioconversion of mercury into numerous other forms and very consistent

data showing mercury to be highly toxic. When Alan Kay questioned the toxicity

of mercury, Boyd was taken aback slightly and explained that he hadn t realized

that anyone was still uncertain about that and referred the good dentist to his

chemistry textbook. He showed with his autoradiograph how mercury knocks out

tubulin and was severely toxic to neurons. He showed AD brain with high mercury

and tubulin knocked out.He showed data on autism and mothers hair, mothers

dental work and children s hair and even their genetic make up. He carefully

explained how APOE-2 was protective and APOE-4 produced the highest risk of both

autism and Alzheimer s Disease. APOE-2 excretes mercury from brain and APOE-4

does not. He showed how synergism between testosterone and mercury could be used

to explain the much higher impact on men than women and how more men than women

have AD and more males than females have autism. A fantastic presentation if you

haven t sniffed too much mercury already.The mop up guy for the pro-mercury side

was Alton Lacy. Dr. Lacy was the paid consultant to the California Dental Board

that was there to defend his Fact Sheet. He is a materials scientist and had

some very pretty Power Point Slides of other peoples work. He started his slides

by explaining that there are certain facts that everyone agrees upon. First is

that amalgam is an alloy and no free mercury exists. (NOT) He claimed that more

mercury is taken into the body through the diet (notably seafood) and through

exposure to environmental sources than from dental amalgam restorations and

offered no science to support his contention.He said that these fillings are

silver amalgam. It was just plain wrong to call them mercury amalgam. Like

calling a person a female woman. Redundant and ridiculous! He also quibbled

about amalgams being 50% mercury. That is by weight you know. If you had a

cannon ball and a Styrofoam ball that were equal in size you wouldn t say that

they were 50% each would you? I didn t quite get the analogy. He theorized that

the dentist was able to magically squeeze all the excess mercury out of the

filling. His facts were his facts and not supported by any scientific evidence

that I could discern. Then he went into his most astounding assertions. First

that we must agree to disagree if we were of different minds and that opposition

to the use of mercury in dentistry was like a religion based upon faith rather

than good common science. He made a very good point though. One camp (his) says

amalgam should be used until it is proven to cause a specific disease in humans.

The other camp says it should not be used until it is proven safe. These two

camps will not agree ever. I think that is a very true statement. He is clearly

from the old Tobacco school that says I can do it until you catch me.He then

went on to claim that animals don t count not once but several times. He said, I

don t treat sheep in my practice and I don t treat monkeys nor do I work on

snails so while studies of these animals might be interesting they bear no

relevance to the issue at hand. He did show an amazing slide of some poor bloke

with about 74 surfaces of amalgam complete with blue gums and blue/black teeth.

He seemed to think this was the finest that dentistry had to offer only the

wrong color.How do you argue with that?He went on to show much of the research

into the exposure to mercury from amalgam leaving little doubt in anyone's mind

that there is a considerable body of evidence that people are exposed to a lot

of mercury from dental amalgams. This is cause for concern but Dr. Lacy applies

his own logic to the evidence and declared that the evidence did not show a

causal relationship to any specific disease. Dr. Yokayama had to stop him at one

point to clarify what the research Drasch had done. Dr. lacy claimed that Drasch

had not found a causal relationship to mercury and disease. Dr. Yokayama pointed

out that Drasch did not look for such a relationship. He had only related the

amount of mercury in the fetus and small children to the number of fillings in

the mothers teeth. Dr. Lacy finally admitted that the conclusion of causal was

in fact his own addition to the research and was his opinion and not Dr. Drasch

s.He then claimed that the safest way to remove amalgam was extraction.

Apparently he has not read the Frykholm paper that showed using radioactive

Mercury 203 that extraction too exposes the patient to mercury. (Frykholm KO:

On mercury from dental amalgam. Its toxic and allergic effects and some

comments on occupational hygiene. Acta Odont Scand 15:7-108, suppl 22, 1957)At

the end of the presentations Dr. Slavkin had split so it was up to Alton to

defend the cause. Dr. Lorscheider in his most medical way had to explain in the

3 minute rebuttal that animals do count and that medicine relies almost

exclusively upon animal studies to make their therapeutic decisions. A lively

discussion ensued and I can t do it justice. Let me know if you want a draft

slightly edited video and you can see for yourself.Following the presentations

the public is allowed to speak. The ADA and the CDA gave their version of scare

tactics. Dentistry would cost so much more that all the poor children would have

to have their teeth pulled. Disease would become rampant if their favorite

material were banned. One even claimed that amalgam worked under water. Ray and

I showed the first 6 minutes of our video " Smoking Teeth Poison Gas! " . (let me

know if you want 100 copies) We only got three minutes each because the dental

board is so pressed for time they can only stand snippets of conversation. Anita

Tibeau from Consumers for Dental Choice and a whole army of local activists from

the NAACP to nursing sororities came up and endorsed prohibitions on the use of

amalgam. Numerous mercury-free dentists from the US and even Mexico spoke about

the amalgam issue. Dr. Grant Layton of the Environmental Dental Association

spoke from his heart as he greeted Alton with fond words. Alton had been his

professor many years earlier when they both were younger. Then he went on to

tell Alton that he was wrong. Amalgam was not the only way to fix teeth and that

he (Grant) had been mercury-free for 20+ years and had no trouble using the

newer materials. Sam Queen spoke eloquently about the roll of mercury and

disease. He was so well spoken and polished I felt proud to have known him for

the last 15 years.Ward Eccles of Pleasanton expressed the shock that everyone

shared that amalgam could be used under water. He never knew that and neither

did any other good dentist present. I thought water contamination made amalgam

expand a lot and crack teeth.LA Congresswoman Diane s representative gave

a very good outline of the -Burton bill and urged the dental board to

listen carefully. He in a very pleasant fashion explained exactly what the basis

of the AB 934 informed consent law was and how they, so far, have failed to

comply. The Lawyer representing the Fellmeth USD Consumer Advocates thanked the

board for the informational hearing (as had many others) and went on to say that

the Fact Sheet was totally inadequate and failed to fulfill the AB 934

requirements.Other than the three representatives of disorganized dentistry no

one else spoke in favor of this 200 year old blunder. One might have noticed

that a good many in the room chose not to speak. Wandering among them and

exchanging business cards it quickly became apparent that Los Angeles has more

toxic tort lawyers per capita than people with amalgam. More power to them.The

A-Team retired to the hotel restaurant for refreshments. After a leisurely lunch

Ray and I packed up the cameras, projectors, equipment and drove the traffic

clogged LA freeway back to San Diego and Boyd and Fritz waited until almost

midnight to hop the red-eye back east. Both had duties the next morning after

flying all night. Fritz had a tennis game and Boyd had another lecture. My hats

off to both these fine gentlemen who took time away from their work and families

to fly some 3000 miles and three time zones to share with the California Dental

Board in 30 minutes what they have learned over the last 40 years. We sincerely

hope they were listening. If not, we ll still protect the public even if we must

legislate away the dentists ability to practice independently.Contact your

representative in support of the /Burton bill HR 4163. Locate your

congressperson by zip code at http://www.congress.org/ Then send them an email

as to why they should support HR 4163. The hearings start November 14th

10AM.These are my opinions and recollections. Others may differ. Sincerely,

Kennedy, DDSkennedy-dds@... Madrid StreetSan Diego, CA 92110

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