U.S. health official killed a Food and Drug Administration proposal that would forbid dentists from using filling containing mercury components, according to the News & Observer.
Here are nine notes:
1. The Department of Health and Human Services quietly killed the FDA's safety communication. The communication was devised in response to citizens' petitions and an FDA advisory panel of outside experts who expressed concerns in 2010 that the FDA was not doing enough to protect vulnerable groups.
2. The FDA has supported mercury fillings since 1930 and has defended the use of mercury fillings in a 23-year-long legal battle with consumer groups.
3. The FDA indicated its changing stance on mercury fillings in September 2011 after Jeffrey Shuren, director of the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health, heard from dental patients describing severe health problems from mercury filings.
4. Lawyers representing consumer groups are urging the government to ban the compounds, which are considered one of the worst toxins in the world.
5. An American Dental Association survey in 2009 revealed 54 percent of U.S. dentists use mercury fillings.
6. The study also revealed many dentists no longer use the products due to concerns about the toxin's effects. Alternatives to mercury fillings have been improved.
7. Mercury fillings are primarily used for taxpayer-funded Medicaid and Medicare programs for the elderly, pool, in the military, in prisons, on Indian reservations and by physicians serving price-sensitive patients.
8. Approximately 340 million tons of mercury are implanted in teeth every year around the world.
9. Five percent to 10 percent of individuals with mercury fillings could face serious health problems.
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