‘Thought from the eyes, Closes the understanding,
BUT
Thought from the understanding, Opens the eyes.’
Emanuel Swedenborg
One of the great advantages of having my own website is that I can have as many opinion rants as I want. This is one such rant and it is only my opinion.
I used to send every new patient an information booklet. I apologize for typos and bad spelling. It did irritate a few patients. I’ve not corrected them here as it is a fairly old historical document. I enjoyed speaking to people who were already informed about what we were doing and our position on important matters that could affect their health. You might be surprised at the information that the patients gladly received. I called it ‘toilet reading’, and suggested they keep it in the bathroom where they could pick it up when bored, and everyone else who came to visit could pick it up and browse.
It’s inevitable that the use of amalgam will disappear. Its use has nothing to do with health or any environmental concerns. It does have a lot to do with jobs for the boys, with maintaining a position of innocence in the face of litigation, with maintaining the sickness industry and with maintaining a good income for a very few people.
Why is it obscene to teach dental students to use amalgam? These kids are starting dentistry in their late teens and early twenties. They are some of the brightest people in our community, and the majority are there to learn how to help people. By the time they have finished their 5 year indoctrination, they will have been exposed to so much mercury, that their intellect and intelligence will have been severely compromised and their ability to study will also be affected. At that age their reproductive ability will also have been affected. If they can pass the exams, then they will be sent into the work force to do their best with the limited training that the dental schools have offered. Most are taken under the wing of a more experienced dentist. The blind keep leading the blind.
Students are not only taught how to be molar mechanics, but also how to argue the case that amalgam, and mercury are safe and effective, that fluoride in the water is safe and effective and that keeping dead teeth in the body is safe and effective.
The mercury levels that students are subjected to are astronomical. If you can, imagine 20 – 30 students in one room with 20 – 30 patients and perhaps a few teachers. One after the other they will mix their amalgams and pack them into their patient’s mouths. Every time that an amalgam capsule is mixed, it releases about 1,000mcg/m3 of mercury vapour into the room! Because students are slower than experienced dentists, this process might go on for hours. All that they are given for protection is a paper mask and latex gloves, both of which are useless to shield from mercury vapour. The vapour will pass, without hindrance, through a paper mask, and be fully inhaled. 80% of inhaled mercury vapour will be absorbed through the lungs and transported throughout the body.
I find it obscene that the brightest minds in society are so carelessly treated by the teachers who are supposed to know this stuff. Clearly the professors and deans who continue this practice, have no conscience or responsibility to anyone they expose to mercury. There is no concern for the patients who are being subjected to this awesome level of mercury. There is no concern that breaking the law might have consequences. Every day in this environment, OSHA and EPA maximum mercury vapour levels are exceeded by horrific amounts. These professorial gods have no concern for all the other people in the dental hospitals that will be exposed to the mercury vapour, carried throughout the whole building.[i]
Everyone in the building will be exposed whether in the clinics or in the offices at the furthest part of the building. Air conditioning filters do not stop mercury vapour! Office staff, dental nurses, cleaners, maintenance people, security staff, academic staff, and even the postman who just comes in to deliver the mail – all will be affected by this mercury and none of them will have been warned or have given their consent to this poisoning. At least in California people must be told if they are going to be poisoned. If the dental students are not being taught about the dangers, do you really think that anyone else is going to be warned? Why is it that OSHA and the EPA have never taken action on this dangerous level of exposure? Everybody in the building will be poisoned! This also includes the deans and professors who are exposed over very long periods. These people are so mad that they do not even have concern for their own wellbeing. They are so busy grooming their Ivory Towers that they don’t see the pit that surrounds them.
Hazmat suits should be mandatory for everyone entering a dental hospital.
From a propaganda point of view this strategy is brilliant. The illusion is created that mercury from amalgam is safe. The teachers generally believe the propaganda and they themselves seem happy enough to stay in these clinics. Everyone really ‘KNOWS’ that they are using ‘safe mercury hygiene techniques’ even though none of them would be able to define what that is. In my experience, many of the teachers really are mad as hatters. This illusion is maintained after graduation by the Private Trade Organisations (PTOs). Every part of the system is there purely for the maintenance of illusion and by the time the dentist is in private practice and focusing on earning an income and having that well deserved holiday on the Japanese ski fields, the illusion has been magically transformed into reality.
The other half of the obscenity is that these students are instructed to go out into the world and poison everyone and everything else, ‘knowing’ that they are doing the best for their patients. The safety and efficacy are assured in this model of the world.
[Although I will be accused of being an ‘antivaxer’, I must draw a parallel with what is currently happening in the medical world and the much touted ‘Covid 19 Vaccine’. It is the first time in history, that governments around the world are forcing citizens to be injected with a trial drug that has not gone through any regulatory process and is not even a vaccine. This gene altering poison is being injected into everyone from the age of 5 up. There are even plans to inject it into newborns as well. This is the first time that all conventions, from the Nuremburg Convention to the Australian Constitution are being summarily ignored and supposed mandates are being enforced to inject everyone. This is to protect the world’s population, from a disease that has a .002% mortality rate. One of the ploys being used was to first mandate the ‘Jab’ for health care workers – doctors, nurses paramedics and anyone else that works in this environment. Many of these people have been fired or have resigned for refusing. They have become the unheard and unthought about. They are silenced. The ones that remain and have not had any of the horrendous side effects from the ‘Jab’, are the voices and faces that governments use to convince the rest of the world that the jab is safe. The jabbed that are alive, are used to show the world how good it all is. The propaganda formula is identical to that used to promote the safety and continued use of amalgam. It could also be said that the vaccine is not there for Covid but that Covid is there for the vaccine!]
The third half (I was never too good at math) for it being an obscenity, is that Australia, in 2013, signed up to the Minamata Agreement to ban all mercury. In 2021 it has still not been ratified. As mentioned earlier, all countries that have signed up to this, have agreed to completely ban the use of amalgam in pregnant women, women of childbearing age and children 15 years and younger by July 2018. I wonder if the professors might be above their legal obligation. Many of the dental students and nurses are females of childbearing age. I find it embarrassing to see people who hold such powerful positions in the dental world, blatantly ignoring their legal obligations to a treaty signed by the Australian Government, with 120 other countries and regions and answerable to the International Court of Justice. Environmental concerns are clearly not a concern for the Deans of Dentistry.
Amalgam has been banned long ago in Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Japan and many other countries.
The Swedish Government report from 2003 clearly states;
“The safety margin that it was thought existed
with respect to mercury exposure from amalgam
has been erased.”
Silent Spring
There is now much talk about climate change with both sides of the debate digging their heels in and trying to disprove the other. This approach to stagnation has been well rehearsed by all interested parties and now thankfully, it is the school children who are raising their voices and demanding better from our gutless political leaders. Financial interest for the few is killing the planet. It is also killing the people. The same is true for medicine and dentistry. Only a few vested interests are regulating what is taught and what is regarded as ‘safe and effective’.
When Rachel Carson wrote ‘Silent Spring’ in 1962, she was ridiculed by industry and governments alike. Her words of warning fell on deaf ears for many years before action was taken to ban the PCBs and DDT that she spoke about. The industries that produced these poisons condemned her findings. Her story here may seem like a weird digression, but it illustrates the same problem about the claims of dental practices being safe and effective. I am including it here for illustration and because I believe that it is important for us all to know about the start of the environmental movements. Another reason for including it is that I and many of my colleagues have been accused of trying to take dentistry back into the dark ages. I find it fascinating that the propaganda machine that condemned Rachel Carson, has almost word for word, been used to condemn the information presented here. This condemnation by the dental PTOs has been happening for more years than I have been screaming for a change. I have no illusion that the story will suddenly change, and the PTOs will acknowledge their past mistakes and comments.
The propaganda follows a formula. Old President George Bush simplified it for his own limited understanding – “your either with us or against us”. There is no shortage of examples in history, and the story of Silent Spring is one of them. Enough time has now passed for her words to have come to fruition.
For those who do not know of her, Rachel Carson was a marine biologist. She was the first person to bring the dangers of widespread use of pesticides and herbicides to the attention of the USA and indeed the world. To many she is seen as the mother of the modern environmental movement. She was branded a ‘feminist environmentalist’ by some in the media. She demonstrated the urgent need to stop polluting the earth with these compounds. She demonstrated clearly the relationship between these pollutants and the incidence of breast cancer, and she demonstrated the relationship between the oestrogen mimicking and blocking role of these substances, and the devastating effect they has on the reproductive cycle of all animals, including humans. Her love of nature drove her passion to try to help humanity and nature. Rachel Carson was a brave messenger who died in 1964 from breast cancer.
The dedication in her book is to Dr Albert Sweitzer, who she quotes as having said;
“Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth.”
In the forward of her book;
“And as a direct result of the message in Silent Spring, President Kennedy set up a special panel of his Science Advisory Committee to study the problem of pesticides. The panel’s report, when it appeared some months later, was a complete vindication of her thesis.”
John F Kennedy. President of America January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963.
From Time Magazine: [i]
“Before there was an environmental movement, there was one brave woman and her very brave book.”
“There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings … Then a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change … There was a strange stillness … The few birds seen anywhere were moribund; they trembled violently and could not fly. It was a spring without voices. On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of scores of bird voices there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh.”
Silent Spring, serialized in the New Yorker in June 1962, gored corporate oxen all over the country. Even before publication, Carson was violently assailed by threats of lawsuits and derision, including suggestions that this meticulous scientist was a “hysterical woman” unqualified to write such a book. A huge counterattack was organized and led by Monsanto, Velsicol, American Cyanamid — indeed, the whole chemical industry — duly supported by the Agriculture Department as well as the more cautious in the media.”
“True, the damage being done by poison chemicals today is far worse than it was when she wrote the book. Yet one shudders to imagine how much more impoverished our habitat would be had Silent Spring not sounded the alarm”
The chemical industry, and the herbicide and fertilizer companies of course saw fit to condemn Dr Carson. The quote below comes from a chemical industry spokesman, Robert White-Stevens, 20 years after Monsanto first began to manufacture DDT in 1944; he described her as “a fanatic defender of the cult of the balance of nature,”
“The major claims of Miss Carson are gross distortions of the actual facts, completely unsupported by scientific, experimental evidence, and general practical experience in the field. Her suggestion that pesticides are in fact biocides destroying all life is obviously absurd in the light of the fact that without selective biologicals these compounds would be completely useless. The real threat then to the survival of man is not chemical but biological, in the shape of hordes of insects that can denude our forests, sweep over our crop lands, ravage our food supply and leave in their wake a train of destitution and hunger, conveying to an undernourished population the major diseases (and) scourges of mankind. If man were to faithfully follow the teachings of Miss Carson, we would return to the dark ages, and the insects and diseases and vermin would once again inherit the earth.” [ii]
‘Silent Spring’ by Dr Carson and ‘Our Stolen Future’ by Theo Colborn, are the scariest books I have ever read. They are essential reading. Climate change is only part of the disaster. There is a fair chance that we may all stop reproducing before the climate change takes full effect. (www.ourstolenfuture.org)
A 1947 advertisement in Time Magazine, for DDT to be used in the home to protect against those terrible pesky insects, carries the following statement;
“The great expectations held for DDT have been realized. During 1946, exhaustive scientific tests have shown that, when properly used, DDT kills a host of destructive insect pests, and is a benefactor of all humanity.”
DDT was finally banned in 1972.
Rachel Carson anticipated these questions about the threats posed to reproduction by chemicals in the environment.
“We are subjecting whole populations to exposure to chemicals which animal experiments have proved to be extremely poisonous and in many cases cumulative in their effects. These exposures now begin at or before birth and – unless we change our methods – will continue through the lifetime of those now living.” [iii]
74 years later in 2018, we get a glimpse at this point in time, of a reality far worse than the bleak picture presented by Mr White-Stevens. It is always easier to look in hindsight at events which suddenly become all too clear. The vermin did not inherit the earth. Instead, it now appears that the mentally damaged may be doing that instead, created by the vermin who made, and continue to make, the poison.
A study published in 2018 looked at birth outcomes for women who were exposed to the banned insecticide DDT.[iv] It continues to contaminate the food chain with continued exposure to the population. DDT and most other insecticides are carried across the placenta and stored in the foetus.
The levels, just like mercury, are substantially higher in the foetus than in the mother’s blood. “A study of more than 1 million pregnancies in Finland, reports that elevated levels of a metabolite (DDE) of the banned insecticide DDT in the blood of pregnant women, are linked to increased risk for autism in the offspring.” .
Mothers who had the most DDE in their bodies had twice the rate of autism with intellectual disability.
“For the overall sample of autism cases, the odds were nearly one-third higher among offspring exposed to elevated maternal DDE levels.”
“…Unfortunately, they (DDT chemicals) are still present in the environment and are in our blood and tissues. In pregnant women, they are passed along to the developing fetus. Along with genetic and other environmental factors, our findings suggest that prenatal exposure to the DDT toxin may be a trigger for autism.” [v],[vi],[vii]
Yes, we are returning to the dark ages and it is being driven by the same industries that made DDT and Glyphosate and that still insists that mercury from amalgam is safe. Another study published in 2018 looked at the levels of this Glyphosate herbicide in pregnant women. “ …90% of pregnant women had detectable Glyphosate levels and that these levels correlated significantly with shortened pregnancy lengths.” [viii]
To top off this madness we have several vaccines that contain Glyphosate, which are injected into young children and babies. There are no studies to demonstrate what happens to these children when Round Up is injected into them. “glyphosate could easily be present in vaccines due to the fact that certain vaccine viruses (including measles in MMR and flu virus) are grown on gelatin derived from the ligaments of pigs fed heavy doses of glyphosate in their GMO feed. Livestock feed is allowed to have up to 400 PPM of glyphosate residues by the EPA, thousands of times higher than has been shown to cause harm in numerous studies.” [ix] As a side thought I wonder if the Jewish and Islamic religions accept these vaccines that are made with pig ligaments?
Dr. Toni Bark, founder and medical director of the Center for Disease Reversal:
“I am deeply concerned about injecting glyphosate, a known pesticide, directly into children. Neither Roundup nor glyphosate has been tested for safety as an injectable. Injection is a very different route of entry than oral route. Injected toxins, even in minute doses can have profound effects on the organs and the different systems of the body. In addition, injecting a chemical along with an adjuvant or live virus, can induce severe allergic reactions to that substance as vaccines induce the immune system to create antibodies to whatever is included in the vaccine. Since glyphosate is heavily used in corn, soy, wheat, cotton and other commodities, we can expect to see more severe food allergies in the vaccine recipients. In addition, chemicals in ultra low doses, can have powerful effects on physiology behaving almost as hormones, stimulating or suppressing physiological receptors.” [x] (my italics)
The conclusion to the forward of Silent Spring;
“And Silent Spring will continue to remind us that in our over-organized and over-mechanized age, individual initiative and courage still count: change can be brought about, not through incitement to war or violent revolution, but rather by altering the direction of our thinking about the world we live in.”
Without history how could we recognize these reference points, by which we can measure the disasters that are denied by the industries and organizations that support them? History is critical if we are to get a glimpse of a future that we might all, if we create it, have some control of, so long as we keep our eyes and hearts open. It’s a bit too late, when we are able to say, ‘I told you so’.
In the words of Rachel Carson;
“We still talk in terms of conquest. We still haven’t become mature enough to think of ourselves as only a tiny part of a vast and incredible universe. Man’s attitude toward nature is today critically important simply because we have now acquired a fateful power to alter and destroy nature. But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.”
Mercury from vaccines and dental amalgam, are implicated in the horrendous rates of autism that we are now facing. How much is caused by the dental industry is unknown, but the only other major source of mercury to the general population is through the mad hatter’s vaccination programs. Just as the effects of DDT are seen in future generations, so too the effects of mercury will be the problem of future generations.
The ultimate deadly SARS pandemic that has ravaged the world, was touted as causing a death rate supposedly greater than the Spanish flu of 1918. The government figures show that Covid has a death rate of 0.02 percent of those who are affected. The death rate from influenza is 5%. Since Covid started, there has been a 0 death rate from the flu. Many governments around the world, have banned one of the few treatments that work to cure the disease and even prevent it. The drug Ivermectin has been used safely for over 50 years. It is an anti-parasitic. It has NO known drug interactions. It is literally the safest drug that exists in the world. It destroys the Covid virus. It is out of patent and therefore very cheap to produce. It is listed on the WHO list of drugs that are ESSENTIAL. Instead, our fearless political leaders have opted for a vaccine approach, of never before seen technology, called mRNA, which has had no substantial drug trials, was developed supposedly in 6 months and has been injected into billions of people worldwide. In November 2021, it has been approved for use in 5 – 12 year olds. The side effects which are beginning to be reported are massive. The death rate from the last 10 months alone, (January 2021 till Oct 2021) has far exceeded the deaths from all other vaccines for the past 30 years. Healthy children and healthy young adults are dropping from myocarditis and strokes. This is promoted by the Chief Medical Officers in most countries. In Australia, the Federal Minister for Health, was a man called Greg Hunt. Before taking this prestigious position, he worked for the World Economic Forum whose slogan is ‘You’ll own nothing, and you’ll be happy’. His role in that organization was as Director of Strategy. He is not a medical doctor. He is a Lawyer!
One of the “Vaccine’ manufacturers is the company known as Pfizer. Pfizer Inc. and its subsidiary Pharmacia & Upjohn Company Inc. have agreed to pay $2.3 billion, the largest health care fraud settlement in the history of the Department of Justice, to resolve criminal and civil liability arising from the illegal promotion of certain pharmaceutical products.
Autism Rates in Australia
The incidence of Autism is rising exponentially. [i] The diagnosis of autism is only one extreme of the profound effect that mercury has on learning deficits and IQ. How dumb can we afford to make the world before we all implode? How much is dentistry responsible for this disaster, considering that the epigenetic effects may not be seen for three generations? How many cases of autism am I responsible for? It is a terrifying thought. I used amalgam, as I was taught to do, for 13 years. I honestly believed that I was providing the patients with the best treatment available. Everything that I read in dental journals supported this notion. I was lied to by the dean of dentistry at Sydney University and I was lied to by the professors. I was lied to by the PTOs. The end result of these lies is ruining the patient’s health as well as mine and everyone I worked with. Mercury and lies are both poisonous.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“People rarely appreciate their ignorance, because they lock themselves inside an echo chamber of like-minded friends and self-confirming news-feeds, where their beliefs are constantly reinforced and seldom challenged.” [i]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My Way or the Highway
Five years at dental school is transformative. Intelligent kids go in and robots come out! There is plenty of time to make sure that the students who pass the exams are thinking the right way. (It took me another thirteen years to wake up from this haze.) We were being ‘educated’ by some of the most ‘intelligent experts’ in the field. All we had to do was learn the answers, write them in exams and receive our degree. Fluoride was the saviour, amalgam was the best filling material because it was cheep and strong, and it was our responsibility to save teeth at any cost with a root canal procedure. The holy trinity!
We are intellectualized out of humaneness, to allow us to be indoctrinated into the ‘professional club’. The club teaches us how to behave and in particular, it teaches us how to think and what to say. The club ensures, that this way of thinking is the only way of thinking. This way of thinking includes total belief in the religion of ‘Professor as God’. Conformity is control. All organizations, governments and individuals love control. People are thrilled to be able to give up control, so that someone else can take responsibility. Control is how profits are made.
When television began, it was well advertised in papers and magazines of the time. The more people who watched TV the better it would be for our community. The creation of herd thinking had just become magnificently easier. One of those adverts run by Motorola, who now make mobile phones and land mines, was headed with;
“How Television Benefits Your Children” and goes on to add “Television teaches children the importance of patriotism, pride and national service” and “Books may teach how to think but TV teaches what to think” and “Television reinforces conformity of thought within the family”. Around the same period there was an ad for “Nico Time Cigarettes” showing a very pregnant and happy woman in profile, with a cigarette in her hand and has the following message “The Smooth Taste Expectant Mother’s Crave”. It is easy to influence anyone’s thinking and most of us don’t even know it is happening. The bigger the group, the easier it is. The more conservative the group, the easier it is!
Maintaining the mind control of dentists, is secured through membership of a PTO or any other of the ‘professional clubs’ on offer, that espouse their own codes of ethics. To see this in action, all you need do is go back as far as you like in the Australian Dental Association News Bulletins. Every month this magazine publishes articles on litigation and/or ethics and especially on how the association is working for its members. There is usually a reminder in one way or other, that we had better toe the line. We are also constantly reminded, that they support continued research on just about anything. The believers think that they actually mean what they say, and the status quo is maintained with threats of litigation and exclusion. The politics of fear is powerful.
Prior to 1996, dentists in Australia were not allowed to advertise. In fact, to speak publicly, you needed permission from the Australian Dental Association or the dental board or a dental hospital. If you didn’t have that permission, you could be accused of breaking the law by advertising. Many dentists have been abused in this way. Around 1992 I created a small information brochure (fully referenced) about mercury and amalgam, for my patients. As far as I know, it was the first such information brochure about mercury from amalgam, that had ever been seen publicly in Australia. It was one sheet of A4 paper, folded in three. It had my name and contact details on it, and of course a list of references. I only handed it to my patients in the surgery. Very soon we had calls from all over the country asking for more information. What we were saying was not what the PTO wanted to hear (especially because it was referenced and written). They accused us (my partner and I) of acting unethically by advertising, and unless we recanted, we could get kicked out of this organization. Thinking long and hard about this for about 5 seconds, we decided to take the ‘exclusion from the club’ option. The next day we had a hand delivered letter from the president of the ADA, telling us we had been ‘suspended’ for six months, instead of being kicked out. We began to give the handouts to various other health care professionals who had started referring patients to us. At the same time, we kept receiving the monthly newsletter and interestingly the articles about ethics became a little more common. So, who needs who more? They didn’t even have the guts to kick us out of the club. It was not a club that I needed anymore. The highway is far more enjoyable.
I sent the club a wire stating,
PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION.
I DON’T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB
THAT WILL ACCEPT ME AS A MEMBER.
Groucho Marx
Evidence Based Dentistry
The powers that be like to have lots of back doors through which to push their agendas, and one of these is something called ‘Evidence Based Dentistry’. The Australian Dental Association (2002) defines Evidence Based Dentistry as;
“…an approach to oral health care which requires the judicious integration of systematic assessments of clinically relevant scientific evidence, relating to the patient’s oral and medical condition and history, with the dentist’s clinical expertise and the patient’s treatment needs and preferences.” [ii]
If anyone out there can understand this, I’d love you to let me know. What is ‘judicious integration’? What systematic process is needed to make an ‘assessment’? Who makes the decision about what constitutes ‘clinically relevant scientific evidence’? I am sure they have a different set of papers to the ones I would call clinically relevant. Since when is scientifically relevant evidence about a treatment, based on the dentist’s beliefs (clinical expertise)? My dental expertise is very different to that of the newly graduated student. It’s like letting religious beliefs get in the way of advice about contraception or condoms and AIDS. What if the patient’s preference is to have their amalgams replaced? Is their treatment preference in line with the evidence base?
‘I don’t think …’ said Alice
‘Then you shouldn’t talk,’ said the Hatter
One of the world’s largest medical indemnifiers has written;
“…the question remains; how secure is the evidence base on which our practice depends?”
“…we would have no hesitation in offering the fullest support to any member who was still using silver amalgam as a restorative material at the present time.
The legal position is that defending any claim of negligence which alleges that the choice of silver amalgam would constitute a failure in the dentist’s duty of care to the patient. One of the many options available in defending such an action is the “state-of‑the‑art, defense [sic].” [iii]
Can you imagine? They have no hesitation defending the practice of implanting mercury into the brain of a foetus with their ‘state-of‑the‑art defense’ [sic]. That would certainly be a court case worth following.
Evidence base is a slippery slope, and the rug could be pulled out from under you in the twinkling of an eye. Very few dentists would realise that the treatments they so dearly cling to, are in fact regarded by the more honest sectors of the dental community, as having little to support the evidence based principles they espouse.
This was made clear in a publication by the Journal of the Australian Dental Association from March 2007. In this special supplement on root canal procedures, they quote from the Journal of Evidence Based Dentistry.
“White et. al., [iv] in a recent evidence-based review of the outcomes of both treatment modalities, noted that if evidence-based principles are applied to the data available for both treatment modalities, few implant or endodontic outcome studies can be classified as being high in the evidence hierarchy.” [v]
The ‘state-of-the-art’ dental treatments of Root Canal and Implants suddenly don’t have any legs to stand on! My version of evidence based dentistry is watching the outcomes of my treatments against the improvements, or not, in the health of my patients. The treatments of course are based on published scientific research.
Evidence base is slippery, and I would call on the PTOs and the deans to justify their positions, in light of the following LACK of published scientific evidence;
- There is NO evidence that amalgam is a mechanically sound filling material.
- There is NO evidence that the mercury from amalgam is safe.
- There is NO evidence that supports the PTO’s or the university’s positions that amalgam is safe.
- There is NO evidence that it is safer to leave amalgam in the mouth, rather than remove it.
- There is NO evidence that only a ‘little bit’ of mercury is all that comes out of amalgam.
- There is NO evidence that supports the notion, that there are situations in which only mercury amalgam should be used as a restorative.
- There is NO evidence that mercury from amalgam is safe for pregnant or breast feeding women.
- There is NO evidence of a safe or tolerable dose of mercury.
- There is NO evidence that these people and organizations have any interest in the wellbeing of the patient or any of the dental personnel.
- There is NO evidence that supports the positions of the PTO’s, NHMRC, FDA, TGA, Dental Schools, Health Departments in relation to mercury amalgam.
- There is NO evidence that Fluoride in the water supply reduces tooth decay.
- There is NO evidence that leaving a dead, infected, gangrenous tooth is safe or effective.
- There is NO evidence that a dead tooth can be sterilized, cleaned and sealed.
- There is NO evidence that root filling materials are safe or effective.
- There is NO evidence that implants are safe.
- THERE IS NO EVIDENCE ….
I remember one of the association’s spokespersons actually saying that “there is no problem from mercury coming from amalgam as we breathe half of it out”!
Take your lack of evidence and “shove it up the hole in your culture.” Leonard Cohen
From the same song there is a brighter note;
“I’ve seen the nations rise and fall, I’ve heard the stories, heard them all,
But love’s the only engine of survival”
It is worth realizing also that the whole concept of ‘Evidence Based Dentistry’ is determined by what is considered reliable evidence. It is rather subjective in nature, not only because we all have different beliefs, but some of the people who make these decisions themselves, may not be impartial. Another research grant, a step closer to deanship, maintaining your job as professor or perhaps just another swimming pool? We must be careful who we judge ourselves by.
Well, I guess that puts me outside the holy-club circle. Most humans have a great need to belong. Sadly, the club most people join, is the one they have been told to! Step out of the circle for just a moment and start reading the science. You may decide to stay outside the circle, even though those who remain, may not like you afterwards. There is great freedom and compassion when we shift the paradigm. We can choose to move from ‘profession centred’ to ‘human centred’.
The argument that ‘it has been used for 150 years and that it has stood the test of time’ is simply NOT a scientific argument – it is only a propaganda argument. It doesn’t matter how many hundreds of millions of amalgam fillings, or the millions of root canal procedures are done each year. The number does not make it safe! It does however give an insight into the thinking, that there is no care or responsibility for the millions that are made sick from this attitude.
This does not mean that we have to give up all that we have learnt. Some of it is OK. We just need to be discerning. I decided long ago to make the patients the people by whom I judged myself. As patients we must learn to question any proposed treatment and KNOW that we have the right to choose what is done to us, and what is implanted into our bodies, before the dentist or doctor has a chance to just ‘do it’. Any professional worth their salt, is only too happy to answer your questions.
Ethics
Libraries are filled with volumes about ethics, for as long as man has written. The greatest philosophers have debated these issues for millennia. Ethical considerations are extremely pertinent to those who regulate them. The past deans and professors who set the dental curriculum, which teaches dentists to poison their patients, who use amalgam in their own practices and are themselves mercury poisoned, are the judges that arbitrate ethics on your behalf. These are the same people who have a range of vested interests to uphold, even if not looking too dumb at the end of it, is the main one. If nothing else, they have a vested interest in maintaining their ivory towers. They may even be as ‘mad as hatters’, whose colleagues are also crazy, and thus they can all consider themselves ‘normal’. This is not Gulliver’s Travels – this is our modern state-of-the-art dental establishment, who consider themselves second to none in the world of dentistry.
In 2018 the FDI World Dental Federation, published a 127 page book about ethics in dentistry. On page 36 they ask the question
‘How Much Information is Enough?’
“At the other extreme, dentists should not simply dump as much information as possible onto patients. This, too, will do more harm than good.”
Under the reasonable Patient Standard;
“it does not so much matter what the average dentist would have told a patient under similar circumstances, but how much the average, reasonable patient would have wanted to hear.”
Is it possible to be more vague? Clearly it does not depend on anything the dentist says. It’s all about the reasonable patient. What is, an ‘average reasonable patient’? What would such a person look like and what would they ‘want to hear’? Does that patient remain reasonable after the treatment has been shown to poison them? Do we think that the reasonable patient is still average, after their baby has been poisoned from the mercury the dentist implanted into them? The implication is that you can tell the patient anything, so long as they remain reasonable and want to hear what you are saying. Once written by an austere organization, it becomes a truth, and then used in a court of law against the patient, or for dentists like me, against the dentist!
Of course, as a dentist you may not have the time to repeat so much information for every patient. As mentioned at the beginning of this rave, I found it easier to send out a written information booklet to every new patient before they came in to see me. It was about 50 pages and of course fully referenced. Many years passed using this information booklet and not once was I challenged by the dental board or anyone else. That is the power of referencing. It is also up to the patient to become informed. The last thing you want to do is believe anything I say. I once had a patient who did not appreciate what was sent to him, and came in demanding that I just got on with ‘it’. He refused to look at the information. As far as I was concerned this was setting up a situation of NO responsibility on his behalf. He was shocked when I refused to treat him. Why? I figure that I am just the technician who takes out the garbage. It is up to the patient to take responsibility for the healing. In my opinion, without information, it is a useless consent and since I am the person doing the treatment, it is up to me to make that decision. I do not believe that I or any other practitioner is responsible for the patient’s healing. (It is certainly our responsibility to not make the patient sick or dead.) It is up to each one of us to heal ourselves. Taking the garbage out is only the first part. The patient and my staff were shocked at my approach. The patient then took the booklet and read it. He came back, thanked me for what I had said, and gave me an informed consent to proceed. His treatment was completed, and we parted with great respect for each other.
Is it ethical to place mercury in someone’s body without informing them that this is happening? California has legislated in Proposition 65 that it is illegal not to inform any person who is to be exposed to a poison. Californian dentists must display the following sign.
“Warning on dental amalgam, used in many dental fillings, causes exposure to mercury,
a chemical known to the state of California
to cause birth defects or other reproductive harm.”
“Root canal treatments and restorations including fillings, crowns and bridges,
use chemicals known to the state of California
to cause cancer.”
Is it ethical to perform a root canal procedure, knowing that it may cause cancer or a heart attack? Is it ethical to poison a patient’s baby before it is even born? Is it ethical to put a schedule 6 poison in anyone’s mouth without informing them that they are being poisoned and that the ‘treatment’ does nothing else but poison them? (Some call it a fluoride treatment. It is not a treatment. It is simply extracting money for school fees.)
I would highly recommend reading “Uninformed Consent – The Hidden Dangers in Dental Care” Written by Hal A. Huggins, DDS, MS & Thomas E. Levy MD, JD and accessible at www.hugginsappliedhealing.com
I believe it would be fair to demand that the goal posts be set firmly in place. The dental boards need to give us a written definition of the meaning of ‘professional conduct’. The dental boards need to give us a written code of ethics, without relying on the codes written by the private trade organizations (PTO’s). What defines ‘unprofessional behavior’? Without clear definitions we all live in a grey area of fear and uncertainty. It is time to demand better. I believe that it would take more integrity than any of these dental boards have, to actually set the goal posts. Then everyone is on the same level playing field – surely that’s not too much to ask.
The Sickness Industry
Many dentists are having major health issues and like the rest of us, are going to the doctor to find out what’s wrong. The symptoms are always related to some disease or other, but the exposure to mercury, or that root canal at the back of the mouth, is never considered as the cause. When I was 27 and working in London, I placed many amalgams in non-ventilated rooms. The mercury vapour would have been astronomical. I was diagnosed with a peptic ulcer and advised to try and take some stress off. Headaches and migraines were a way of life back then. My vision was becoming slightly blurred which led to my first pair of glasses. I was permanently short tempered. My mood swings were even starting to worry me, let alone the people who were close to me. When I was 37, I went blind in my left eye, overnight. The diagnosis was Acute Optic Neuritis, with a possible disease cause being Multiple Sclerosis. By this age I also had a noticeable tremor in both hands. I had irregular muscle twitches that were uncontrollable. I consider myself to be one of the luckier of my colleagues, who are now dead. Many years of suffering happened before I learnt about the mercury connection. By 47 years I no longer had any of the above symptoms. The only change was getting away from mercury! I stopped using it and had all of the amalgam fillings in my own head replaced.
As my thinking became clearer it was easier to see through the propaganda. At a dentists-only seminar about how safe amalgam was, one of the top professors addressed the group of dentists and students and lied about the conclusions for the references he put up to support himself. It really was tragic. He did not like to be corrected and nor did he like the question I posed. He had the audacity to suggest that because composite plastic fillings were so ‘technique sensitive’, that it was difficult to teach. It begged the question “do we need brighter students or better teachers?” The auditorium fell into a deathly silence for nearly a whole minute, till another speaker took up the microphone and ended the meeting. I was shocked to realize the level of fear in the other dentists, that anyone should speak so disrespectfully to the ‘professor’. That he lied to everyone seemed to make no difference. That he admitted his level of incompetence, also made no difference. I was surrounded by shocked and horrified sheep. “Don’t buck the system or you might just begin thinking.” Is it really so hard to read the science and make sense of it yourself? Must we all remain fearful of the dishonest professor, because he might have hidden powers that can get you in the middle of the night? He might just have another agenda. Come on – it’s time to wake up! Liars are liars no matter what hat they wear. Both mercury and lies are poisonous.
It takes a lot for a dentist to change the way he/she has been doing things for years. It takes a degree of integrity to treat the patient differently to what your peers are doing. The only way that you can, is to become properly informed. Read the research. The more you learn, the more the lies will become obvious. Don’t get distracted by a trade organization’s idea of ethics. You decide what is ethical and start living by it. If you decide that poisoning patients is OK then so be it. If you decide that you will no longer be a member of your PTO, then so be it as well. Each decision is filled with karma of one sort or the other.
You have just learnt a whole lot that the dental world does not discuss. Sorry – unfortunately you cannot really unlearn something! It’s now time to make decisions about the rest of your life, both personnel and work. The old paradigm has fallen apart. The old system is desperately clinging on to the rock face with a tenuous grip of madness.
Where to next
If you don’t wish to be bombarded by propaganda about terrorists, turn off the TV. There is so much beautiful music to listen to. My advice to all dentists is to spend your hard earned dollars elsewhere and resign your membership from these PTOs immediately. If you do wish to maintain your membership, then how about asking them some real questions – they are, after all, answerable to their membership. The caretakers are elected. They are renewable. Start to get some real representation. Try asking the PTOs – in writing – what they consider to be a ‘safe’ level of mercury vapour. See if they know what the NOEL for mercury is. As paid members you have a right to ask questions and they have a responsibility to answer them. They ARE legally responsible to their membership. After all, you are paying them a fortune for the right to have honest answers that are supported by published science. It is ultimately your health and that of the patient, that will be affected. It is no longer acceptable for back door answers like, “we take our advice from Health Departments, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the National Research Centre for Environmental Toxicology and the National Health and Medical Research Council. Our position is dependent on their current pronouncements which support the use of amalgam as a safe and effective material.” Forget the back door of always having someone else to take the blame. The associations need to justify their position with published scientific references. As dentists we look to these groups to give us the information about how best to treat our patients, for the patient’s best health outcomes and our best legally defensible position. Have we been relying on incorrect information? I am still waiting to see the paper that says categorically that mercury from amalgam is safe. It’s been over 20 years so far.
Who Am I?
One of the first things we dentists need to do, is stop identifying with our work and profession. I’ll lay bets that the majority of dentists, when asked what work they do, will reply ‘I’m a dentist’. What you’re really saying is that in every aspect of your life you are a dentist. Sometime over the 5 years at university, you stopped being Robert or Mary or Harry and became Dr Painless. Once I worked this out for myself, I started to answer that I am Robert and I do dentistry for a living. Most people were happy to not ask me anything else but found it important to put me back in the box – ‘oh you’re a dentist’ was the common response. We all live in a hypnotic trance that is awkward to move away from. Until we do, we will remain at the mercy of all the indoctrination we have been subjected to. Even trying a new type of food becomes challenging. When we are better than the rest of humanity, we become so removed that we cannot even see someone else as the same as ourselves. How can we effectively treat another human being, if they are so different from us? Oooops! Perhaps it is the dentists who stopped being human. As we regain our humanity, we begin to see the madness that the PTOs espouse. Why should a dentist be concerned about what the PTOs call unethical? You might decide to judge yourself by other humans instead of these self-serving organizations.
We are all so much more than our work, no matter how well paid it is. Leave the ‘white-coat’ behind and just be a human being working with other human beings. This is after all what we really are. Simple! If we are to treat our fellow human beings, we must remember that ‘they and we are the same’. There is no difference. Our vision is clouded and controlled by the glasses we wear and the knowledge that we have. Especially if we believe that this is the only knowledge that exists. Don’t let your education get in the way of your intelligence. It gets in the way of even seeing that a different paradigm may exist.
Change can happen suddenly and usually does.
Making the shift – For Dentists.
I know that it’s difficult and uncomfortable to change years of belief and practice. I haven’t used amalgam since 1987 and I assure all readers that there is nothing I did with amalgam, that I couldn’t do a hundred times better with the alternate materials. The mechanical argument just doesn’t stack up against the toxicity of mercury. If it did, than Norway, Sweden and much of the rests of Europe is doing inferior dentistry, as they have completely banned the use of amalgam. It is NOW illegal to place amalgam into the mouths of children under the age of 15 and in pregnant or breast feeding women or women of childbearing age. Well, illegal in countries that have signed on to the Minamata Convention. Australia is one of those countries. Are you suddenly now going to do inferior dentistry for this group of people? Question – if it is unsafe for these groups of people than really, who is it safe for?
What do you tell your patients, who have put their faith in you for so many years? In the past, you may have told most of them that amalgam is safe and effective and now you may fear appearing hypocritical. Most people will love you more when you let them know that you are keeping up with the times, and that you have seen so much evidence to the contrary, that you have decided to err on the safe side and use safer materials and safer techniques. You might also let them know that you have been using composites for a while now and found that mechanically they are actually better than amalgam, contrary to what the PTOs force down our throats (pun). The only people who think that amalgam is great are the dentists. Most of the public look at me in shock when I tell them that, not only is it still being used, but that the universities are still teaching it. Everyone except the dentists know that mercury is a poison. When they find out that you have stopped your membership of the local PTO, they will respect you as well as love you.
By the way, do you realise that the sign in most dental surgeries that says you’re a member of the “….. Dental Association” is in fact a free advertisement for them. They rely on your need to belong. If you belong than your mind is no longer individual and beautiful. They have not paid you for the privilege of advertising in your surgery. In fact, you have paid them to do it. Now what does that say about you?
Only dentists and doctors are scared of having made a mistake. The rest of the world knows that it is a human condition. Correcting the mistake is what is important for most people. Till now, you have done what you have been taught by the professors. They are wrong – it is not your fault.
I’ve spoken to many dentists who have come to Australia from overseas. As part of their required course to sit the dental exams again in Australia, they all reported that they received a lecture from a representative of the PTO. Each time they were told that
- 1- they MUST belong to the PTO.
- 2- it is ‘illegal’ to remove amalgams
- 3- that it is illegal to extract perfectly good root canalled teeth.
These are blatant lies from the very hypocrites who claim to set ethical standards! It is certainly worth being aware that it is the PTOs who need the membership to stay viable organizations. In reality there is not one dentist in the world who ‘needs’ their PTO. They need you far more than you need them! You could drop your membership and save thousands of dollars annually and join a different club of more conscious humans.
It seems to me that it is the teachers who are not suitable. Yes, we need brighter teachers. Yes, we need honesty in universities. Integrity is a higher order of existence than most of the professors and deans seem to have! Remember that today they are all still teaching the use of amalgam, fluoride and root canals not to mention implants!
Once you make a decision that you will never use amalgam in your practice again, you will find that most of the stress of dentistry evaporates. Have all the amalgams removed from your own mouth – properly. You will also find a happier and healthier staff. Give it six months to let the mercury levels in your own body drop. Get rid of your amalgam mixing machine. Clean your premises – not with a vacuum cleaner – and duct your suction machine to the outside of the building.
A new paradigm based on positive outcomes for everyone, is what I am proposing. It is critical that you as a dentist remain well. It is critical to look after the welfare of your staff and patients. It is critical to really base your treatments on science – the science that is published in reputable medical journals, not the pseudoscience that the PTOs like to print in their own journals. They like to sit on the fence and publish comparisons about anything and everything, rather than come up with a definite conclusion. They always encourage further research, so long as it maintains the status quo. If you sit on the fence with them, you will only get a pain in your bum. If you are calling yourself a ‘holisitc’ dentist and remain on that fence, than I reckon you deserve the pain. I have never called myself holistic, as I don’t know very much. I do not like to be likened to the holistic dentists who call themselves by this glorious name, yet still do their fluoride treatment, root canals and unnecessary implants. Back in the 90’s many dentists jumped onto this holistic band wagon to try and get a bit more of the market share. I have consistently refused this label and at the same time I was booked out consistently for three months in advance. I even offered some other dentists who were sitting idle in their offices, to learn some of these new ways of thinking. They preferred to sit idle and ignorant.
It took me many years to start feeling comfortable with all of this new information. It was at times a painful process and one which I initially resisted strongly. I’ve been fortunate to have had thousands of patients who have taught me more than any professor or textbook. It took me a long time to let go of my training and listen to my patients. It took me a long time to regain my humanness. Then I started seeing the health improvements in one patient after the other. There was no turning back. There was just a hunger to learn more and do more.
There is so much more to learn than what the current teachers are offering. As dentists we need to fully understand, that whatever we do to someone’s mouth, we are doing to the whole person. The affects that we create in the patient will be felt also by their families and friends. It is therefore incumbent on us to make sure that our mechanical filling does not make the person sick or possibly kill them. Yes, I am putting the patient’s health above the state-of-the-art anythings. The reality is, that dentistry done correctly, can heal the whole person. As Hypocrites said, all those eons ago – ‘First do no harm’.
Now there are alternative organizations that dentists can belong to and gain the scientific information that really is relevant. These organizations generally do support their members and give real advice. The International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology is one such organization. IAOMT . DAMS international are also worth joining.[vii] Another place to go to get training is with Dr Blanch Grube @ http://drblanchegrube.com.
What most dentists don’t realize is that we have the power and the training to assist someone’s healing. We have the power to shift the paradigm and really bring dentistry into its rightful place as a healing modality. We just need to allow the possibility.
“contempt prior to investigation is what keeps us in ignorance”. Albert Einstein
Get rid of the amalgam fillings in your own head.
Once your brain is returning to full function, you may enjoy learning about the wealth of dental treatment that can actually benefit a person’s health. It is time for all dentists to take responsibility for the materials we place in human living people. Dental device or not, amalgam is an implant of mercury into living tissue.
As always there is one more step. After having your own amalgams removed and no longer using the stuff, the next concern is how to get it out of other people’s mouths safely. There is much to learn that the dental faculty has no idea of.
You Do What You Can, How You Can, When You Can –
That’s all You Can Do
Krishnamurti
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
References
[i] http://www.autism-adhd.org.au/autism_prevalence
[ii] http://www.ada.org.au/About/policies.aspx ADA policy statement 5.8c pdf November 21/22 2002
[iii] Dental Protection on the front cover of their 15th issue of Riskwise Australia
[iv] White SN, Miklus VG, Potter Ks, Cho J, Ngan AYW,. Endodontics and implants, a catalogue of therapeutic contrasts. J Evid Based Dent Pract. 2006;6:101-109
[v] Australian Dental Association Endodontic Supplement Vol 52 No 1 March 2007
[vi] Leonard Cohen ‘The Future’
[vii] http://www.icnr.com/articles/dental-amalgam-mercury-syndrome-support-group.html
[i] Aust Bureau of Statistics http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4430.0Main%20Features752015
[ii] Australian Bureau of Statistics https://www.sbs.com.au/news/why-a-42-per-cent-increase-in-autism-diagnoses-is-no-cause-for-alarm
[iii] https://www.autismspectrum.org.au/news/autism-prevalence-rate-estimated-40-1-70-people
[iv] the US National Health Statistics Report
[v] The Prevalence of Parent-Reported Autism Spectrum Disorder Among US Children Michael D. Kogan, et al Pediatrics December 2018, VOLUME 142 / ISSUE 6
[vi] http://www.autism-adhd.org.au/autism_prevalence
[i] http://www.time.com/time/time100/scientist/profile/carson.html
[ii] Our Children’s Toxic Legacy by John Wargo Yale University Press New Haven and London ISBN 0-300-07446-8
[iii] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/nature/disrupt/sspring.html
[iv] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180816081500.htm and https://www.mailman.columbia.edu/
[v] Alan S. Brown et al. Association of Maternal Insecticide Levels With Autism in Offspring From a National Birth Cohort. American Journal of Psychiatry, 2018 DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2018.17101129
[vi] First biomarker evidence of DDT-autism link National birth cohort study finds DDT metabolites in the blood of pregnant women are associated with elevated odds of autism in offspring August 16, 2018 Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health
[vii] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180816081500.htm
[viii] Glyphosate exposure in pregnancy and shortened gestational length: a prospective Indiana birth cohort study. S. Parvez R. R. Gerona, C. Proctor, M. Friesen, J. L. Ashby, J. L. Reiter, Z. Lui and P. D. Winchester Environmental Health201817:23 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12940-018-0367-0 Published: 9 March 2018
[ix] Dr. Stephanie Seneff MIT scientist https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2018/02/23/vaccines-contain-glyphosate-examining-anti-gmo-claim/
[x] Toni Bark, M.D. (LEED AP) graduated from Rush Medical College in Chicago, Illinois in 1986.
[i] Tezel H Ertas OS Erakin C Kayali A Blood mercury levels of dental students and dentists at a dental school. Br Dent J (2001 Oct 27) 191(8):449-52