Maine law requires that every dentist who still uses amalgam fillings give the patient a specific fact sheet—before installing the filling.
Unfortunately, we know from testimony before the Maine legislature last year, that too many Mainers aren’t getting this fact sheet, ever.
TAKE ACTION: Tell the Maine Dental Board to rewrite the rules for Chapter 12 section III, part C on amalgam so that dentists are required to follow Maine’s amalgam fact sheet law.
The Maine Dental Board will hold a public hearing on this issue on Friday, November 8, at 2 p.m. Address: 161 Capitol St. 143 State House Station, Augusta. Please attend if you can.
The Maine dental board is not enforcing Maine’s amalgam fact sheet law.
In fact, under the board’s current rules, the board states that compliance with the law is voluntary. Plus the board’s rules allows those dentists who do choose to hand out a fact sheet to give any fact sheet, to patients—not the official fact sheet developed by the State of Maine, and specified under the law.
This is unacceptable. Every Mainer has a right to know that amalgam is mercury.
We are fighting to get a rule with teeth, a rule that requires pro-mercury dentists to hand out the fact sheet, and to prove they did this by putting a signed copy in the patient file.
What’s wrong with amalgam fillings? Plenty.
Dental amalgam can cause:
• Exposure to mercury, the most toxic and more vaporous of the heavy metals, can harm your kidneys, and permanently damage your child's developing neurological system, and even kill your unborn child in the womb.
• To implant amalgam, a dentist drills out healthy tooth matter in order to carve the crater necessary for amalgam placement – a primitive process that irreversibly weakens tooth structure. With a damaged tooth structure and with a metal-based filling that expands and contracts with temperature changes, teeth with amalgam are much more likely to crack years later, necessitating additional dental work.
• Amalgam is a workplace hazard, especially for young female dental workers who experience an elevated rate of reproductive failures.
• Dental mercury is the number one source of mercury in our wastewater, so dentists are handing the clean-up bill for their pollution to taxpayers and water ratepayers.
It’s time for the Maine Dental Board to follow Maine’s amalgam fact sheet law!