Post by Mech on Jan 11, 2004 10:07:37 GMT -5
Connecticut threatens to revoke license unless dentist shuts up about amalgam dangers
According to a Nov. 13, 2003 Hartford Courant article:
Dr. Mark Breiner, an Orange dentist who has long campaigned about the health risks he says are inherent in mercury-laced amalgam fillings, is now battling for his free speech rights.
A federal lawsuit filed Wednesday on Breiner's behalf by the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union seeks to bar the state Department of Public Health from taking action against Breiner - for the second time in four years - for expressing his concerns about the metal fillings.
In 2001, Breiner agreed to stop recommending that his patients replace their amalgam fillings, as part of a consent decree he entered into with the state health department to keep his license.
But last summer, in the wake of a small mercury spill in a Monroe high school science laboratory, Breiner wrote a commentary piece for the Connecticut Post newspaper. He used the school's emergency closing as a springboard to reiterate his own concerns about mercury in amalgam fillings.
"The American Dental Association has steadfastly maintained that mercury-based amalgams are safe," Breiner wrote. "As a Connecticut dentist, I have disputed this contention for decades and have battled the ADA and the Connecticut State Dental Association for the right to remove such fillings from patients' mouths." Breiner in his article also endorsed proposed federal legislation to ban amalgam fillings.
Breiner's commentary piece, which ran in July, drew the ire of state health officials within weeks of its publication. Health officials told Breiner that his commentary piece appeared to violate his consent decree.
[...] "It's one thing if they want to set constraints on what he tells his patients," [Connecticut Civil Liberties Union executive director Teresa] Younger said. "It's a whole other thing to say you cannnot have an opinion, or share that opinion outside your professional workplace. You can never sign away, and the government should never ask you to sign away, your First Amendment rights."As for the safety of amalgam, according to an April, 1995 The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology journal abstract (emphasis added):
For more than 160 years dentistry has used silver amalgam, which contains approximately 50% Hg metal, as the preferred tooth filling material. During the past decade medical research has demonstrated that this Hg is continuously released as vapor into mouth air; then it is inhaled, absorbed into body tissues, oxidized to ionic Hg, and finally covalently bound to cell proteins. Animal and human experiments demonstrate that the uptake, tissue distribution, and excretion of amalgam Hg is significant, and that dental amalgam is the major contributing source to Hg body burden in humans. Current research on the pathophysiological effects of amalgam Hg has focused upon the immune system, renal system, oral and intestinal bacteria, reproductive system, and the central nervous system. Research evidence does not support the notion of amalgam safety.
