Hello,

Either:

A) The following is a worthwhile debunking of a myth

OR

B) Someone on the list will have relevant counter information and will reply, so
here is...

>THE TOXIC TOOTH SCARE 
>Thursday,February 15,2001 
> 
>By STEVEN MILLOY 
>
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 
>
>ASSEMBLYMAN Richard Brodsky is so obsessed with the dangers of mercury, he wants your dentist to scare you by warning you - falsely - that the filling you're about to get is toxic. 
>The written dental warning is just one provision in a bill from Brodsky (D-Westchester) to place new limits on the use of mercury, a metal found in thermostats, light bulbs, batteries, hearing aids, watches and dental fillings. 
>
>The idea behind Brodsky's measure is to reduce the amount of mercury making its way into waterways - where it can accumulate in fish, which are then consumed by people. 
>
>But while Brodsky calls mercury "the most insidious, dangerous and pervasive poison that still remains largely unregulated," science doesn't back him up. While mercury can be toxic, there's no indication that the low levels present in today's environment are hazardous. 
>
>The main mercury concern is harm to unborn children's nervous systems. Two famous mass-poisoning cases bear this out. Near Minamata Bay in Japan, a number of children were born mentally retarded in the 1950s after their pregnant mothers ate lots of fish that had been highly contaminated by unchecked industrial discharges of mercury. A similar tragedy occurred in 1970s Iraq, after pregnant women ate seed grain treated with a mercury-containing fungicide. 
>
>No one knows how much mercury the mothers ingested, but samples of their hair averaged 41 parts per million (ppm) in Japan, and up to 674 ppm methyl mercury in Iraq. 
>
>The average mercury level in hair associated with seafood consumption in the United States is about 0.12 ppm - a level far below that associated with harm to children's nervous systems, as noted in a July 2000 report from the National Academy of Sciences: Studies of children in other countries who had received low-dose (though still higher than that seen in America) prenatal exposure to mercury "provide little evidence" of appreciable effects. 
>
>Indeed, the body of evidence linking low-level mercury exposure with harm to children is so weak that U.S. regulations are based on statistical extrapolation from the Iraqi data. The Environmental Protection Agency's current "safe" level of mercury exposure is based on a maternal hair level of about 11 ppm. 
>
>That's roughly 90 times the average U.S. exposure to mercury from fish consumption. Even among women of childbearing age who consume the most fish, mercury intake is about three times below the level at which risks are thought to begin. 
>
>And there's no evidence at all that mercury in dental fillings is harmful. 
>
>So what's Brodsky's mercury bill all about? He's doing the bidding of extreme environmental activists - for whom mercury is another evil element, like chlorine or lead, that must be banned from the periodic table. 
>
>The last wave of this ridiculous campaign was a drive to limit mercury emissions from electric power plants. Gov. Pataki blocked these efforts for good reason: Not only are health effects from mercury in U.S. fish questionable, but no one knows how much mercury in fish comes from power plants. The uncertainty surrounding the mercury controversy is so great that Congress barred EPA from regulating mercury from power plants until the NAS reported on mercury, which it did last July. 
>
>As noted above, the NAS reported no compelling reason to clamp down on mercury sources. But science doesn't matter to enviro extremists or the politicians who pander to them: They just went looking for a new line of attack. Hence Brodsky's plan to force your dentist to terrorize you about your mouth being a toxic waste site. 
>
>Steven Milloy is publisher of Junkscience.com and an adjunct scholar with the Cato Institute. 

(from http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/22495.htm )