SCENIHR criticised over its inept approval on dental amalgam.
Following on from the last message….
The Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks SCENIHR is the European Commission’s expert body on new emerging risks. To quote:
Questions concerning emerging or newly-identified risks and on broad, complex or multi-disciplinary issues requiring a comprehensive assessment of risks to consumer safety or public health and related issues not covered by other Community risk- assessment bodies. In particular, the Committee addresses questions related to potential risks associated with interaction of risk factors, synergic effects, cumulative effects, antimicrobial resistance, new technologies such as nanotechnologies, medical devices, tissue engineering, blood products, fertility reduction, cancer of endocrine organs, physical hazards such as noise and electromagnetic fields and methodologies for assessing new risks.
In May 2008 SCENIHR issued a report titled, Safety of Dental Amalgam and Alternative Dental Restoration Materials for Patients and Users. The report concludes, in part:
We conclude that dental health can be adequately ensured by both types of material. All the materials are considered safe to use and they are all associated with very low rates of local adverse effects with no evidence of systemic disease.
HOWEVER, this report has come under extreme criticism from the International Academy of Oral Medicine & Toxicology – Europe (IAOMT), with its membership restricted to scientists, Medical doctors and dentists. The Scientific Advisory Committee of IAMOT issued a dissenting 43 page report on SCENIHR’s dismissing the toxic effects of mercury amalgams.To quote in part from IAOMT’s Position Statement:
Critique on SCENIHR Preliminary Report “The safety of dental amalgam and alternative dental restoration materials for patients and users”.
Excerpt
In spite of its long usage, accumulated scientific evidence now clearly shows that dental amalgam (silver-mercury fillings) expose dentists, dental staff, members and dental patients to substantial amounts of mercury vapor, particulate and other forms. Chronic exposure to mercury, even in minute amounts, is known to be toxic and poses risks to human health, we must therefore conclude that dental amalgam is not suitable material for dental restorations.
Due to mercury’s inhibiting influence on the growing brain, it is incompatible with current science and experimental knowledge to endorse or condone the use of mercury containing fillings – especially in children and women of childbearing age.
Physicians and dentists should, where patients are suffering from pathological states and diseases of unclear causation, consider whether exposure to mercury released from amalgam fillings may be a contributing or exacerbating factor in such adverse health conditions.
Governments of several countries have placed restrictions and/or issued advisories against the use of mercury in dental fillings – particularly in children and pregnant women. Recently a joint panel of FDA scientific advisers rejected an FDA whitepaper’s assurances of the safety of dental amalgam.In light of the above mentioned facts, the International Academy of Oral Medicine & Toxicology and its Scientific Advisory Board urge the dental profession to join the rest of the medical profession and abandon the use of mercury.
The IAOMT critique also states:
The SCENIHR report is grossly inadequate as a scientific document.
The report has serious omissions.
The report is contradictory.
The data that is reviewed in interpreted incorrectly.
The report confuses Toxicity and Allergy.
It makes assumptions and forms opinions to draw unwarranted conclusions even with the very limited data it reviews.
The report ignores the synergistic effect of mercury with lead, the effects of gender, diet and certain antibiotics in increasing the uptake and toxicity of mercury from dental amalgam fillings.
SNIP
The SCENIHR report is best described as a Fishing Expedition rather than a scientific document; the omissions speak louder than the inclusions. The only logical interpretation is that the committee has selected data to support a predetermined conclusion as to the safety of dental amalgam.
SNIP
Link to the full 43 page critique here
Also see: http://iaomt.org/wp-content/uploads/IAOMT-2013-Position-Statement.pdf
And now the experts at SCENIHR are to give their opinion on the Potential health effects of exposure to electromagnetic fields. According to Dariusz Leszczynski (last message) it is looking like SCENIHR is about to do another almighty spin and dare call it science.
Don
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