Lake letter: Dental amalgams

In response to the second health article on dental amalgams by Greg Gordon, I have to ask why the Statesman publishes columns by reporters who have an agenda? As a dentist who has a degree in Environmental Biology from University of Colorado and worked at the EPA at its inception in 1976, ’77, I find it amazing that the most obvious problem here is the exposure of dentists placing and removing amalgams from patients’ mouths. Dentists do not have high risks for neurological diseases due to these exposures, and the exposure to patients are minute and much less than the exposures they get from eating fish and soil exposure due to mining in our area. Dentists have no desire to poison their patients; white fillings have formaldehyde exposure, gold and porcelain restorations are expensive. Articles on this subject should be drawn from peer reviewed journals with large groups of patients, not the equivalent of the National Enquirer, and the journalist should not write to sway his audience. The risk/benefit analysis here is dental abscesses from lack of treatment that cause heart attacks, strokes and brain abscesses, which may be fatal. The exposure should be to fluoride on a daily basis.

This story was originally published January 20, 2016 at 6:04 PM with the headline "Lake letter: Dental amalgams."