The FDA is forced by consumers, dentists and lobbyists to reopen the 2006 proceedings

HOW THIS ALL CAME TO PASS – AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Various consumer and dental organizations have been petitioning the FDA for change for many years.  Finally in 2006 hearings were held in Washington for figures from both sides of the fence to present to an FDA panel.  Several days before the panel was convened, the New York Times published a copy of the FDA white paper verifying the safety of mercury fillings in teeth.

Following a day and a half of testimony, at which I was given the opportunity to present penultimately, the convened panel voted 13-7 against the adoption of their own white paper.  They then placed the author of the white paper in the witness stand, and he eventually explained that the reason his report was so one-sided in favor of mercury fillings was that, “I was only following orders.”

The FDA was then supposed to rule, but it took persistence on the part of attorneys for the anti-mercury forces to move them to rule on the last possible day that their mandate allowed.  These same attorneys had called for the recusal of Margaret Hamburg, the Obama-appointee who had a vested interest in the issue, having come to the FDA from one of the largest dental supply houses in the nation.  She did not recuse herself, and many were shocked when the FDA once again came out and said that mercury fillings were safe, but reclassified these fillings as Class II medical devices (they should be Class III – where the manufacturers have to prove safety of the product), and suggested that they did not belong in the mouths of children under the age of six and in pregnant women.  I have refuted this in my 2010 speech, and when asked for commentary in 2006, I told them it did not go far enough.

The heat was turned up on a national, and an international level this past year, and the FDA announced new hearings with an “independent” panel of experts advising them on the following matter.  Time will tell whether we have been correct, like the MD’s in the 1800’s who tried telling anyone who would listen that mercury causes neurologic problems (in the 1800’s they called it Mad Hatters’ Disease).  The public, at least, has been made far more aware of the problems inherent in mercury placement in the heads of those who cannot handle the toxin.