Our Preferred Poison - Mercury

Dad,

Do the all white fillings pose the same mercury danger as the silver ones?

Beth

Truthfully, at this time we do not know what dangers the components of white fillings may present. They are a resin based product, and certainly may well contain volatile substances when they are prepping them, and like other plastic may well leach they over time that are less than desirable. Time will tell if they have fewer adverse reactions than the known (if unadmitted) danger mercury vapour presents.

We do know white fillings cost a bit more (and many dental plans refuse to pay for them because of that).We also know they do not last as long and are harder to set in place, because you must have the area much cleaner/drier than mercury filling require and you must keep the mouth immobilized a bit longer to allow it to set up.

On the good side, they are not as ugly as amalgam fillings, and it is not necessary to gut the tooth to install them (unlike amalgams which need a very big hole to work right) which allows the tooth to be stronger once filled.

I have a question for you, Dad, but dont know if you are expert enuf to know the answer.

You said that if you are planning to have a child in the near future, you should eliminate all fish from your diet, which does make sense to me. But then you put in parenthesis “women”. Do you mean that the male involved in the conception may eat fish, and it wont effect the child? I completely understand why a PREGNANT woman would refrain from eating fish. But what about the guy involved in the making of the baby?

I’ve always wondered about this line of thinking. The male may smoke pot, cigarettes, drink to his heart’s content and god knows whatever else, and that doesn’t effect the child? Please answer if you can. Or anyone else’s input would be welcome.

Lucy — this is a complicated question. Basically there are two kinds of damage: genetic damage to the chromosomes of the basic cells, and environmental damage to the fetus in the uterus.
Something that actually damages the chromosomes in the cells, such as radiation for example, will affect both men and women. However, since eggs are produced more slowly than sperm, women may suffer more damage even here.
Something that stays in the bloodstream and affects the fetal environment will affect the child through the mother but not the father. Alcohol is a particular example here.
The situation is complicated because many toxins affect several parts of the body; a lot of drugs and toxins lower sperm production in men as well as making an unhealthy environment for the fetus.
Anyway, no child will benefit from having a parent who is abusing substances or ill from environmental toxins, so the responsible thing to do is for both parents to take care of their health.

Thank you, victoria, wise words indeed. My thinking is that BOTH parents need to create the healthy environment, and I for one am a bit (mainly when it comes to having to sacrifice anything) tired of the WOMAN bearing the brunt of the health thing when it comes to having and raising children. Just reading some of the older posts on this board shows that this mindset still abounds, unfortunately. Thannks for being open-minded.

By the way, no offense intended to you, Dad. I wasn’t referring to your posts. I enjoy reading your posts, and just wanted to read your take on this.

No offense taken Lucy.

One quik comment about the man/woman thingy…

I fall into (sorta) what you are describing, often making remarks like “the woman must/should do this” etc. but not for the reason you have mentioned. I do not think that the woman should shoulder the burder while the man dances in the bar. Rather i think it falls on the woman so often because so many men are near worthless that if Momma doesn’t take charge the child is completed f@#$ed.

Take a look at message boards and email list like this one, look around at your local parent support groups. Somewhere between 60 and 80% of the Sped kids’ families you will see in places like this will only have Mama Bear involved. Perhaps Papa Bear is too busy working 2 jobs to bring home the bacon, and if that is true then good for him! But too often it is Mama Bear alone (single parent) or perhaps Papa Bear is a part of the problem (denial of the reality of the child’s state of being is more comimon in men than women, for a host of reasons, not the least of which is on average men are not as strong as women in this regard).

My emphasis is as always helping the child. Adults can all go pound sand as far as I care, it is the little people who are important in my eyes. And my experience has been that means dealing with a lot of Mamas.

Victoria did a pretty good job of summing up the in-utero responsibility of the parent who caries the child for 9 mos. As far as the drinking/smoking/dope question… I can udnerstand needing a break from life’s burdern’s, but if you are drinking or smoking pot to the point that you risk chromosonal damage it is time to get a little rehab and quit blowing the paycheck that is better used putting food in the chilluns’ bellies, shoes on their feet and enrichment activities which will help them mature into good people as adults. And my attitude about smoking in general (legal or not) is that it is to be done strictly outside, where the children (including the unborn) do not have to share in your nasty, dirty habit. People who insist on smoking in a closed environment where children are present are the worst form of selfish, period.

Thanks Dad. You sound like one of the few (sorry) good ones. Men, I mean.

I have to remark, though, I cant help but wonder where you’re from. I mean, “chillins”? lololol!

I picked that one up on another message board (geared towards Sped teachers) from a “troll” who posted under the name “Betty Please”. This person proports to be a Black lady, retired from Sped since the late 80’s (or early 90’s, depends upon the post), and is full of affected coloquilisms from the deep South (which are used inconsistantly and occasionally wrongly, which is part of why we know “she” is a troll). Some of them struck my fancy, and I work them into conversation now just for the pleaure of doing so.

Very cool, that is cute! :lol:

IQ Loss Linked to Mercury Costs $8.7B
UPDATED - Monday February 28, 2005 5:54pm

Washington (AP) - Lower IQ levels linked to mercury exposure in the womb costs the United States $8.7 billion a year in lost earnings potential, according to a study released Monday by researchers at a New York hospital.

The Mount Sinai Center for Children’s Health and the Environment combined a number of previous studies to determine hundreds of thousands of babies are born every year with lower IQ associated with mercury exposure.

Using work examining the effects of lead exposure on IQ, researchers determined that even a 1.6 point drop in IQ could cost a person $31,800 in lifetime earnings because of missed educational opportunities or jobs.

Peter McCaffery, a scientist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School who studies the brain, said the Mount Sinai researchers did a reasonable job piecing together a wide range of possible reactions to mercury exposure.

Mount Sinai pediatrician and lead researcher Leonardo Trasande estimated that between 316,588 and 637,233 children are born each year with umbilical cord blood mercury levels linked to IQ loss.

The research found the IQ losses linked to mercury range from one-fifth of an IQ point to as much as 24 points.

As an example, Trasande said about 4 percent of babies, or about 180,000, are born each year with blood mercury levels between 7.13 and 15 micrograms per liter. That level of mercury, the group concluded, causes a loss of 1.6 IQ points.

Mercury levels, Trasande said, are probably lower generally than they were in years before limits were placed on emissions from medical waste and municipal incinerators.

“We’ve made great progress in reducing mercury emissions over the past decade, and this is likely to have reduced the number of affected children and to have reduced costs by a similar amount,” Trasande said.

Leonard Levin, a scientist at the Electric Power Research Institute, said no group has yet to produce solid data defining the impact of mercury on intelligence.

Mount Sinai released its findings in hopes of influencing the debate over legislation before Congress, known as Clear Skies, that would change how the government regulates emissions from power plants and other sources.

The study was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and with financial support from the Jennifer Altman Foundation, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the Rena Shulsky Foundation.

Yes mercury in fish is a problem, but women planning a pregnancy or already pregnant should be sure to take a very good essential fatty acid supplement. There are several reputable brands that are definitely mercury free. Essential fatty acids are extremely important for brain development!

Linda W.

Actually, mercury from eating fish is not the primary source of exposure for most Americans or the unborn - dental amalgams are. Only people who would have fish as a primary staple of their diet would have methyl mercury common in seafood as the largest source of exposure.

You are correct that many brands of CLO which contain both Omega-3 and Omega-6 essential fatty acids actually have almost no mercury in them, so they do indeed make very good supplements. You can also get EFAs from flaxseed oil. One caution however, CLO is also high in vitamin A which can be toxic to the liver in large amount and flaxseed can interfere with iodine. As with many things, moderation is the key.

Dad - I agree totally that mercury in the environment is a very bad thing. However, these cost analyses are really rather too hypothetical and based on a lot of biased assumptions.

Another news factoid last night: someone somewhere (sorry, missed the details) is testing people drinking black tea and eating fish; it seems the tea helps the body excrete mercury better. Another thing worth a try, although yes, please, always in moderation.

I agree with you Victoria, that the piece about loss of IQ has too many ifs to be concrete science. For instance it does not take into consideration mercury’s role in more significant changes than just loss of IQ, thus leading to a gross under-calculation of the cost of this poison.

For instance, if the prevalance rate of autism determined from the last 5 major studies holds true nationally here in the States, and half of the cases of full blown autism are indeed triggered by in-utero exposure of mercury, then the cost to the US for this facet alone would be significantly higher - $22.4 trillion just for residential care of the affected.