Appeals Court OKs Use of Mercury Dental Fillings

/Home/Specific Dental and Oral Conditions/Mercury Fillings

Appeals Court OKs Use of Mercury Dental Fillings
April 16, 2007
Shaveta Bansal
All Headline News

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - In a unanimous ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Friday sustained the defense claim brought by the Food And Drug Administration over the potential risks of mercury dental fillings and said that the court lacks jurisdiction in the case. The case was filed in April of last year by nine petitioners, including four non-profit organizations, a mercury-free dentist, two alleged victims of mercury poisoning from silver fillings and two state officials.

The group had charged the FDA with illegally allowing the sale of amalgam fillings claiming that mercury - a key constituent of those fillings - is completely unnecessary for oral health care and could cause severe health risks.

However, the FDA had maintained that mercury fillings don't cause any harm to the recipients except in rare cases when they have allergic reactions, the Associated Press reports.

In recent years fears have been raised about the safety of mercury fillings. In the 1980s scientists showed that amalgam fillings continuously released vapors in the mouth that are inhaled and absorbed by the body.

Mercury poisoning can lead to memory loss and kidney failure, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association.

However, several recent studies have bashed those claims and classified the fillings as safe.

Researchers from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research conducted two studies on more than 1,000 children in Portugal and the U.S. with tooth decay but no existing fillings and gave them either silver fillings or white composite resin fillings. They found that the levels of mercury were so low they did not cause a problem. However, the risks in children sensitive to any adverse effects of mercury remained to be determined.

Silver fillings contain silver, tin and other metals that are held together like glue by mercury, which makes up 50 percent of the amalgam. The resulting mixture is stronger, more durable and less expensive than any alternative filling yet devised.