From: kirsten rose [mskirstenrose@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, September 01, 2006 8:34 PM
To: Dockets, FDA
Subject: Docket Number 2006N-0352 Mercury Amalgams


To Whom It May Concern,
  A year and a half ago, I had a complete physical collapse. I am 41 years old. My doctor discovered that I had mercury toxicity and recommended that I have all of my mercury amalgams out as soon as possible. 
   I  have spent the previous year detoxifying from mercury,  and repairing the damage to my nervous system and tissues that mercury is suspected of wreaking upon my body, over the years. I had over nine fillings of mercury amalgams. The fillings were put in during my early childhood into my early twenties. 
   My recovery has been a hard road to travel, as I do not have health insurance, and I became completely disabled and was surviving on state disability insurance, without money to pay out-of pocket for my medical treatment. My seventy-year old parents had to spend a lot of their savings to pay for my Dr. visits, and detoxification. Unfortunately, that money ran out before I made a complete recovery. 
  I, by chance, found a non-profit foundation established to help low-income persons disabled from mercury amalgams have the amalgams removed and replaced with inert resins. My recovery from the years of damage continues. This is nothing to say of the previous years of my life spent with a disrupted immune system and the cost of that to my enjoyment of life and productivity. 
  I suspect, after experiencing the results of my doctor-supervised mercury detoxification, and reading countless studies by impartial scientific analysis of the effects of mercury amalgams on human health, that many of my previous health problems were directly linked to mercury toxicity. These include: mood swings, neck and jaw pain, digestive disorders, poor memory, mental confusion, and others. All of these symptoms are being profoundly alleviated through my detoxification. These are health problems I had been working with doctors to relieve for years, to no avail, until I found a doctor familiar with the medical complications caused by mercury. 
 I am still in the process of having my mercury amalgams removed. I have 1/3 of the total still present. It will take large doses of many nutrients and continued medical attention for me to completely recover from the cumulative damage, once the amalgams are all out. 
  I think that mercury toxicity from mercury amalgams is rampant in United States. I think at this point, with all the sound, scientific evidence available, the American citizens deserve to be informed and protected by the FDA in regard  to  mercury  amalgams in dentistry.  Anything short of a total ban on all mercury-containing amalgams at this point is tantamount to lying and deceiving the taxpayers. The subtle and not so subtle effects of this harmful element on the human physiology has doubtless cost this nation billions of dollars in lost productivity over the many years it has been implemented in dentistry. The ill effects upon  individuals, as well as to our economy are cumulative. 
  Some professionals may profit from  the sale of mercury amalgams, others may profit in industries which use mercury for other purposes, or whose industry emits mercury as a by-product, other industries, or groups of professions profit from the misdiagnosis of mercury toxicity symptoms. There is an entire 'mental-health' and associated industries, such as the top Fortune 500 psycho-pharmeceutical industry,  which profits from cases of mercury toxicity being misdiagnosed. It is logical, on superficial evidence to mistake all sorts of mood, mental, and behavioral disruptions as mental illness or other illness. Mercury does affect the brain and hormones so profoundly. Because nothing 'cures' the real cause of some of these mental, mood, and behavioral symptoms except detoxification of mercury, people whose illnesses are, unbeknownst to them, caused by mercury, will never be 'cured'. They will always be customers of the industries which, well meaning or not, try to treat their symptoms as signs of other illnesses. There are plenty of physical ailments caused by mercury toxicity. I developed debilitating rheumatoid arthritis symptoms which came on rapidly and lasted for weeks. I could not walk up stairs or sit on a toilet without assistance. When I finally found a doctor who understood mercury toxicity, he explained to me that bacteria in my bloodstream which would normally have been killed by my immune system could pool in my joints. Those bacteria had mutated over the eons to attract and hold certain heavy metals which it could pull from the bloodstream and then utilize as a sort of shield against the body's immune system, which would normally kill such bacteria. Since mercury had collected in my joints this way, inflammation, and infection ensued. As he treated each affected joint with a little-known technique of mercury removal, each joint became 100% pain and inflammation-free within days. Luckily, my immune system was strong enough to attack the bacteria once it was stripped of it's shield. I only wonder how many others are suffering needlessly in the same way that I was. 
  All of the industries and professions which are either directly involved with providing mercury amalgams, 'treating' mercury toxicity as if it were some other illness, and all industries which contribute to mercury as an environmental contaminate, together comprise a LARGE part of the United States and international economy. 
 I understand that if the FDA to admits that mercury  amalgams are as toxic as the evidence holds, the FDA will be unleashing the truth about the toxicity of mercury, in general; regardless of the means by which mercury is introduced into the bloodstream; i.e. air, water, food, amalgams. The FDA's findings will therefore, if they are truthful, have implications  that will send shock waves across the bottom-line of the all the above mentioned industries. One might be tempted to say that the mercury amalgam issue is a 'political hot-potato' for our legislators  to take on. I believe the mercury issue is in fact, a moral issue. Are we, as a nation, ready to remedy the disaster wreaked upon millions of lives over generations, and stop protecting  industries and professions involved in unsafe mercury use? Shall the health of many, born and unborn, be disregarded so that others may continue to make their living in the way they have become accustomed? 
  We are a great nation, and we can work on all levels, in all industries, not only dental, to 'turn this ship around'.  People who are comfortable with the status quo don't like to change. People who are struggling to find answers for their health problems and their children's health problems will find the answers, and will demand change on the part of their government agencies. Those numbers are swelling.  The doctors that uphold their Hippocratic Oath are growing. We, the people, demand that others who claim to hold our health as sacred to follow suit, and first, 'do us no harm'. 
 The credible, unbiased information about the hazards of mercury amalgams are plentiful. Withholding the truth or casting a blind eye to the evidence, is harmful. We will not rest until the truth is told, in no uncertain terms, about this menace to our health. 
  The FDA will lose any credibility it still has if it does not act on the truth of mercury amalgams. People don't like to pay agencies  which don't prove through action, to have their best interests at heart.
  Here is an opportunity to do your nation and the world a great service. Let us not go by way of the Roman Empire. My grandfather used to point out to me, using ancient Roman coins, how the relatively rather rapid decline of it's Empire was evident by the correlating degradation of the craftsmanship of the coins. Let us remember that as the Roman Empire became more prosperous, their plumbing and tableware was made of lead.  It could not have left their mental capacities unscathed as the levels of lead increased in their bloodstream over time. They had the excuse that they didn't understand chemistry the way we do now. 
  Could the rise in mental health symptoms over the years in this nation be a result, in part, of 'mad-as-a-hatter' s'  disease?  More people than  ever have had access  to  dental care.  Let us not forget that the brave men and women  dentists  who have already taken it upon themselves  to practice mercury free dentistry have wrongly been characterized as "quacks" by those who can't weather the truth being told about mercury.     
  The word "quack" came to English from German. Before mercury amalgams were devised, only the wealthy in Europe could afford fillings. Some German dentists, to serve the masses, then devised mercury amalgams, not knowing of it's toxicity. In German, the word for mercury is "quicksilber". The use of mercury amalgams spread to England, wher the term for a dentist who installed mercury amalgams became "quack".  Quacks formed professional associations, of which our ADA is a direct descendant.  In looking at the evidence, and collecting data to make your determination as to the fate of our health on the issue of mercury amalgams, bear this in mind. 
  I will state again, I am sure you will find, given all the unbiased, credible science, mercury does not belong in our mouths. There is nothing about mercury amalgam which magically renders mercury inert when placed in our mouths. The effects upon our health are both immediate and cumulative. The former Soviet Union used to use iron amalgams which caused iron toxicity. Humans can make mistakes based on not enough information. Humans can also perpetuate mistakes once given more information, for the sake of not roiling the waters. The water is already roiled and we are all downstream, as it is said. I hope that everyone in the FDA is prepared to be a hero. We will be watching.  I know you won't let yourself, as individuals in our FDA, or us, whom you serve, down. Thank you for your time. 
Sincerely, Kirsten Rose