Dentists refusing to do costly treatments?

Yeah they literally lose money if they do certain complex things.
It's also true that the NHS doesn't cover root canal in certain circumstances as apparently they don't have the specialist equipment? This might have been a ruse as they told me I had to have it private!

Your citation lists 8 studies…

”We searched scientific databases until 16 February 2021 and found eight relevant studies. The studies evaluated 3285 composite fillings and 1955 amalgam fillings; however, it is unclear how many participants received these fillings. The exact age of participants was unclear in some studies, but the studies included both children and adults. The studies took place in the UK, the USA, Portugal, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and Turkey.”

My citation lists over 400 across many decades from many, many researchers across the globe.

https://iaomt.org/wp-content/uploads/article_ZiffBibliography.pdf

I don’t disagree that a massive amount of mercury is released during and after amalgam installation. What you and your fellow dental colleagues seem ignorant to or to refuse to accept is that amalgams release mercury 24/7 and never stop. This means that individuals with amalgams are constantly exposed to mercury.

iaomt.org/wp-content/uploads/article_ZiffBibliography.pdf

But again, you refuse to explain how amalgams are toxic once removed and treated as a biohazard but safe in the mouth? I really would love to know the chemistry involved?

Why did the dental community refuse, and in some cases, still do ignore the fact that amalgams release mercury vapour constantly?

It can hardly be said that IAOMT is unbiased as many organisations , including the World health organisation, have criticised their stance on many subjects from root canal therapy to fluoride etc.

It’s important to recognise they are an organisation of “holistic” dentists and the research they publish will suffer from confirmation bias .

The Cochrane review and European Union do not suffer from the same bias .

It is somewhat baffling that there is a theory that dentists are suppressing the dangers of amalgam when they are the group that is the most likely to suffer any potential health consequences . The fact the dental team are not , either historically or presently, suffering high death or disease rates according to most accepted research is an interesting long term research statistic.

As the years go by the equipment and techniques for root treatment have improved and teeth can be saved that were not salvageable in the past .

A specialist will have spent time and money in getting specialist qualifications and tens of thousands in buying equipment such as operating microscopes and specialist materials such as MDTA.

On the whole the NHS does not employ specialist endodontists as it is difficult to justify spending hundreds or thousands saving one tooth when the limited budget also has to cover reconstruction for cancer and cleft palate patients, for example.

If a tooth is deemed complex according to nationally recognised guidelines, it is not defensible for a dentist , private or NHS to attempt it without the training and equipment. So you have to be referred and in the vast majority of areas that referral will be private .

A little history on “holistic dentists “ and IAOMT https://quackwatch.org/related/holisticdent/

Thankfully just one individual’s view.

No the ADA , WHO and various dental professional organisations also have condemned IAOMT https://quackwatch.org/consumer-education/nonrecorg/iaomt/

The same could be argued for the many dentists involved in an industry which has placed millions of amalgams and made money from doing so.

But the research papers cited are not conducted by the IAOMT if you cared to look. In fact, many were conducted long before holistic dentists became a thing. They all provide evidence that amalgams leak mercury which is detrimental to human health.

Your very citation from the EU literally agrees that amalgams leak mercury and that this is toxic!

Still waiting on that explanation as to how amalgams are being phased out due to toxic effects on the environment but safe in a human mouth?

But that person is taking nonsense because it’s well established fact that dental amalgam is a major source of mercury for humans. Just shouting the word quack doesn’t detract from facts.

Dentists who have both amalgam in their mouths and place and remove amalgams every day .

What is the interest for dentists ,who are exposed to many times more amalgam every day than anyone else will see in a lifetime , who would be the canaries in the coal mine for health effects of amalgam, in taking part in a “conspiracy” to hush up effects of amalgam?

The first thing the EU paper says is in certain clinical areas amalgam is the material of choice. This is after 7 years of investigation from a body that has no commercial interest either in placing amalgam or in charging huge amounts for dubious protocols, supplements for removing amalgams due to dubious health claims .

The EU scientific committee is obviously also talking nonsense

Dietary intake is the most important source of non-occupational exposure to methylmercury, with fish and other seafood products being the dominant source of this highly absorbable form in the diet

this is where that quote is from https://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/opinions_layman/en/dental-amalgam/l-3/3-mercury-exposure.htm

this is also the opinion around the world eg US , New Zealand , Canada etc https://www.epa.gov/mercury/how-people-are-exposed-mercury

I never said that dentists are part of a conspiracy, simply that many of them are poorly educated and oblivious to a toxic material that they placed in their patients mouths.

Thankfully there are dentists out there who are educated and open minded to different approaches.

It’s interesting that despite being the “material of choice (in certain areas)” they have favoured the discontinuation of amalgam due to its toxic effects on on the environment. But like you, no explanation for why it’s toxic to the environment but not a human.

There are studies out there showing greater mercury levels in dentists which is interesting.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13213647/

https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/2514/

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26581313/

If they’re not given enough funding to cover the cost of the procedure then they are paying out of their own pocket for your dental care.

Did you read and understand the studies you’ve quoted ?

This is from the study pulling various papers together

The quality assessment of the included studies revealed several methodological limitations

in other words what you may think the studies show conclusively doesn’t .

This is why things like Cochrane reviews are important and looking at what papers actually say and who publishes them is also important because of confirmation bias , in other words if you go looking for something in research you are likely to find it confirmed.

All undergraduate and post graduate dental education includes extensive education on dental materials , toxicity and risk/benefit . The fact that the majority of dentists will not only have placed and removed amalgams but will also have them in their own mouths would surely indicate a near suicidal level of disinterest that you are indicating , when the dental workforce would , itself , be the overwhelming victim of it’s supposed poor education.

All scientific studies have limitations, not sure why that is news to you. The 8 studies your Cochrane review cites also have limitations as does the review itself. But there is evidence indicating that dentists have more mercury in them against the general population and that this may lead to detrimental health effects. Ignore these facts as you wish. I know, as a dentist, it must be a tough fact to comprehend that you’ve swallowed a lie.

Im not sure how they can have been educated properly when many of the dental regulatry bodies denied that amalgam leaked mercury. In fact dentist’s were falsely taught that once placed, the mercury is locked in. It’s laughable based on basic chemistry principles.

I am , actually , quite content that my dental education and subsequent career placed an emphasis on continuing education, research and how to read and parse information from research papers.

It has informed and changed the way I have practiced over the decades.

”They” (world health organisation, European Union scientific committee , various countries drug and medical devices advisories , etc) never “lied” they presented evidence which, as a professional , I read over the decades as did most dental professionals and formed my own opinions .

The idea that ignorant professionals buried their heads in the sand and blindly followed some big pharma conspiracy and blithely followed advice is strange as the safety of amalgam has been discussed in both a measured way via research over many decades and unmeasured way via media from Tom Mangolds “documentary” in the 90s to you tube and tik tok more recently. It is even more strange as dental professionals are most at risk from amalgam dangers and female dental professionals of child bearing potential will be even more sensitive to potential dangers.

It is difficult to see why on Earth anyone would think a group of well educated and aware people would happily ignore a massive “threat” to their health !

All of which is rather moot as better alternatives to amalgam are continually being developed . However what is not moot is there is certainly a group of people promoting expensive protocols etc for removing amalgam that have scammed people so badly that many charities etc multiple sclerosis society , cancer charities etc have had to warn people against falling for these false claims .

If you have enough teeth to chew without this one then removing it would be a suitable option and as this is the lower cost to the NHS, this is all they will offer
I know times are hard but it’s well eorth saving a few wood or using a credit card for work such as this, because the NHS won’t fix it. Many teeth needing a root canal will need a specialist and this will never be on the nhs as an nhs dentist can’t do it

I have an NHS dentist and have had a root canal.

I had similar. I recently had to go privately to an endodentist for some complex root canal treatment, but the crown will be done on the NHS.

What the NHS will cover varies between regions. My NHS dentist was very apologetic about not being able to do the root canal on the NHS, and said that if I lived in London, it could have been done on the NHS.

It seems very unfair that there's such a difference beween areas.

Well said. Absolutely fed up of the scare mongering that goes on these pages sometimes.
ah well, maybe we should just embrace the madness since all us dentists clearly are uneducated, suffering from ill health, ruining the environment and going mad.

as the Mad Hatter himself once said ““Have I gone mad? ... I'm afraid so. You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are.” ❤️

YANBU to find it frustrating, particularly as many things that used to be broadly normal have disappeared from many places. I had such great care 20 years ago on the NHS including dental surgery that in the last 10 years started to fall apart IME..

As others said, it's all set up to be as unfair to both dentists and patients (and push both to the private sector).

I oddly had the opposite issue - I had messed up baby tooth that never came out, no tooth under it. It broke and got a root canal several years ago which was followed by crown after crown that kept popping off in part because it was weirdly shaped. I would get told if it came off again that it would be extracted, then that it was too risky to pull due to the roots so they'd put on another crown while saying I was put on a waiting list for a specialist. It got to the point the tooth moved back and forth while I was eating, really uncomfortable and unsettling eating like that and then shifting your tooth back into place while it's in your gums.

When I got a new better paying job, one of the first things I did was get a private in-depth dental assessment. Tooth was pulled a week later - and there were no root. That's why it was moving as it did, there were no roots anymore.

But they did lie because they taught their students that mercury is not released from dental amalgams. This has been proved false many times starting with Alfred Stock in the 1920s. The dental community dismissed this.

Then when they finally acknowledged that mercury is constantly released from amalgams, they tried to downplay the risks and hide behind risk / benefit. Just like this clown who was the Chief Executive of the BDA, an organisation supposed to act in patients interests. Not exactly someone to be trusted.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fq8E84PgP3g&pp=ygUjQnJpdGlzaCBkZW50YWwgYXNzb2NpYXRpb24gbG9zZXMgaXTSBwkJLQwBhyohjO8%3D&ra=m

The facts are dental amalgams release mercury constantly and mercury is very toxic to human health. This is backed up by overwhelming evidence which you’ve been presented with. It’s your right to ignore it but thankfully I, along with others including some dentists, can follow a different path.

And of course amalgam is finally being consigned to history under the guise of being toxic to the environment. You still refuse to explain how amalgam is toxic to the environment but safe in a human mouth. We can only conclude it’s because it’s a guise and it’s toxic to both and they cannot admit a huge health scandal.

In decades to come, people will look back and shudder at the horrendous practice of putting mercury in patients mouths, many who were children and completely unaware. Zero informed consent. It will be spoken about in the same vein as asbestos, lead in petrol and doctors advocating smoking. Another horror health story. Hopefully the dental education system will finally have the humility to acknowledge its mistake and take responsibility.

Unfortunately the research does not back up your suppositions .

There is no public health scandal . The population who are best studied , the ones who both have amalgam fillings placed in their mouths and have worked placing it and removing it , every day for decades ie the dental team , have no increased disease rates , have the same or higher life expectancy than the general population , and the major causes for early retirement are musculoskeletal skeletal (caused by contorting into uncomfortable positions for hours at a time) , and skin related eg dermatitis (washing hands with products multiple times a day . )

There is an increased suicide risk , in common with other groups who have access to means like doctors, vets and farmers.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9170753/

Fortunately clinical practice is based on peer reviewed evidence not you tube videos .

Using research from the 1920s when there have been multiple studies since on health aspects of amalgam use which show no quantifiable risk other than for a small number who may have sensitivity or lichen planus which is resolved by removal of amalgam . The same problems have been seen with other dental materials from methyl methacrylate to composite. It also has to be said in the 1920s amalgam was mixed with mercury in a pestle and mortar then placed in gauze and the mercury squeezed out by hand before placement! Very different from the non gamma 2 alloys which are encapsulated and carefully dosed !

Yes it does but you want to ignore the myriad of hundreds of independent research papers that back up the facts that amalgams leak mercury and mercury is toxic to human health. This research was conducted over many decades from the 1920s until recently. It is very conclusive.

https://iaomt.org/wp-content/uploads/article_ZiffBibliography.pdf

There is also peer review studies showing that dentists have a higher body burden of mercury vs. the general population. But again you ignore that and cling to the lie you were taught in dental school.

The YouTube video isn’t a research paper but the Chief Executive of the BDA that you operated under. Not someone to be trusted making clinical decisions.

I think you misunderstand what Peter Wards role and that of the BDA is . Clinical guidance is not given by the dental “trade union” but by myriad bodies including SCEDP , the royal colleges , the NHS , NICE , specialist bodies such as British Periodontal Society etc. The video excerpt is also a highly edited clip from a “documentary “ that was promoting a particular view and that was hotly disputed .

No dentist practices solely on what is taught at dental school , dentistry is evolving all the time and it is a professional obligation to update , continuously , your knowledge . The way dentistry is practiced has changed massively over the decades, as have the materials.

Finally where is the evidence of the massive health problems suffered by the dental team caused by having amalgam both in their mouths and working with it every day? The clinical decisions I made I can justify as I both have amalgam in my mouth and have for decades , and have worked with it for decades , and have followed the changed clinical guidance over the years .