Shedding Light on Amalgam

Did a pleasant thought pass through your mind today? Did something tickle your risibility to the point of causing the corners of your mouth to rise ever so slightly? If so, then you just don’t get it, do you? The world is going to hell in a handbasket, environmentally speaking, and you need to pay attention.

Environmentalists are determined to convince us that if we are not part of the solution, we are part of the problem. Fortunately, we have an on-the-ball governmental agency working overtime to discover new threats to our way of life. Combining forces with concerned citizens who see global warming and pollution of air, water, food and dirt proliferating faster than boy bands, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has just issued another warning.

Michael Osborne, chief of the Indoor Environment Management Branch of the EPA, recently revealed that candles can now be blamed for Earth’s pollution. The pollution from a burning candle can exceed standards the agency sets for air quality, he says. This announcement immediately caused Valerie Cooper, executive director, of the National Candle Association to burst into spontaneous combustion. It’s not the lit candle that contributes to the high level of particulates, she explains, but the result of candles smoldering.

These two entities, the EPA and the NCA, have sensibly arrived at a tentative compromise, suggesting that candlewicks be trimmed to a quarter inch, the house be ventilated, and all lit candles be kept out of drafts, much as you would an older person. Please try to keep that in mind at your next birthday party or when rolling blackouts prompt your area to fire up all the candles it can lay hands on.

Would that our remaining pollution problems could be coped with so easily. Specifically, we refer to the ongoing amalgam wars. The skirmishes seem to be heating up with the enthusiastic support of trial lawyers asking themselves, "WWJD?" referring, of course, to Johnny Cochran.

All right, all those who believe that mercury is a toxic substance raise your hands. Right -- 100 percent. Now, all those who believe that it is a major threat to personal health when incorporated in silver amalgam fillings, a show of hands please. Ah, not so many, but when combined with the hesitant hands of those not so certain one way or the other, a group to be reckoned with.

One particularly disturbed lady on television recently declared that "silver" fillings (a misnomer she hates) contain 50 percent mercury, and a conspiracy was afoot fomented by dentists and their organizations to keep consumers from realizing this.

Aside from the fact that amalgam is esthetically on a par with homemade soap, it seems to be a scientifically proven fact that mercury vapor is released every time the owner of amalgam-filled teeth chews. Chews what? Mashed potatoes or beef jerky? You would think the quantity of the vapors released might depend on the texture of the food and the forces of mastication.

Never mind, mercury vapor belongs in lamps, not in your mouth is the reasoning here. One mouth = X amount of vapor, possibly an infinitesimal amount, but most adults have any number of amalgams accumulated since childhood. A conservative estimate puts the total number at slightly more than 875,642,416,924 as of last Thursday. These are primarily Class 1s and 2s with a sprinkling of Class 5s. A gentleman in Biloxi, Miss., is said to have a Class 4 placed by his dentist in 1904.

Let us imagine that around 6 p.m., beginning on the East Coast, all these mouths start chewing their dinners. The release of mercury vapor suddenly becomes less of a personal problem and more of a national one as the cumulative toxicity exhaled exacerbates our air pollution beyond tolerable levels. The toxic air, despite the normal flow of wind from West to East, proceeds westerly like the "wave" at sporting events, passing through time zones like Grant through Richmond.

Three meals a day plus snacks, 150 million amalgam-enhanced jaws chomping away -- the portents are mind boggling! We are fortunate that there are those who care enough to press for solutions to this problem. So far, considerably more heat than light has evolved.

Shall dentists immediately start to work excavating old amalgams, thereby releasing even more mercury vapor in the process? An undeniably profitable, but potentially unethical, idea. Should the proposal be based on toxicity fears or sweetened with the promise of enhanced esthetics? Shall amalgam be declared a controlled substance, the use of which invites a stretch in a federal pen? What about the International Amalgam Cartel? It’s not going to be too happy explaining the ban to its stockholders. Shall a law putting a $50 cap on lawyers’ fees be enacted ASAP to discourage the frenzy that is sure to erupt when mercury poisoning becomes the most popular litigation since sexual harassment?

These are some of the profound questions that face us today. In the interests of fair play, may we recommend arbitration with the EPA and the National Candle Association offering their input on this smoldering dilemma?