FDA's Toxic Teeth Removed? You Must Be Mad as a Hatter...

Headline: Mercury teeth fillings may harm some: FDA "Dental amalgams contain mercury, which may have neurotoxic effects on the nervous systems of developing children and fetuses," the FDA said in a notice on its Web site.

This may be the century's biggest "Moment of Duh." It took them how long to finally figure out that mercury in the mouths of babes is a dangerous thing? Should we increase their budget as a reward?

"The FDA must issue the new rules in July 2009," FDA spokeswoman Peper Long said.

Charles Brown, a lawyer for one of the groups called Consumers for Dental Choice, said the agency's move represented an about-face.

So it will take them an additional year to determine what to do with this "new" information. Does FDA need another billion tacked onto its already-bloated budget so that it may act on what was obvious to anyone with a lick of common sense over 100 years ago?

"Gone, gone, gone are all of FDA's claims that no science exists that amalgam is unsafe," Charles Brown said in a statement.

How sad is it that the ADA no longer has a rock to hide under? For the millions suffering mercury toxicity thanks to modern dentistry, not very.

"There's no science to support the danger of mercury in a filling!"

That's usually the cry from dental mercury "denialists" so that they may remain safely under the rock that is no longer there. Now that they are forced to crawl out and face the mercurial music, what happens next? The karmic loop takes its course. However, in an ideal world, it shouldn't have to take a lawsuit to force the FDA to do its job. Have you noticed that the veil of illusion is lifting on a lot of government denials recently? Another recent court case forced the feds to acknowledge a vaccine-autism link. Has Hell frozen over?

What of the individuals within the bureaucracy? Considering the bureaucrats that played along with the "see no evil, hear no evil" mercury defense, is it ever justifiable to defend the indefensible just to keep your job? Perhaps they should study Nuremburg. Inevitably, the federal government will shrink significantly, whether Ron Paul is around or not, simply because the Law of Cause and Effect is closing in. Dr. Paul is suggesting that we change course BEFORE it is devastatingly forced upon us all.

The FDA is charged with protecting the public from dangerous substances. How dangerous do you have to be to get banned around here?

"J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. analyst Ipsita Smolinski said the FDA is not likely to outright ban the fillings next year but will probably call for restrictions."

Got mercury? Even in the face of overwhelming evidence, much less common sense, the FDA will continue to allow dentists to install toxic metals into the mouths of trusting patients. What if dental amalgams were a dietary supplement rather than a medical device? The FDA tends to argue "pro-choice" only when the choice is exclusively pharmaceutical.

You noticed that they did not allow the American consumer the freedom to ingest ephedra -- even though it had only caused a handful of adverse events, none neurodegenerative, didn't you? In the case of dietary supplements, the FDA's weight is thrown 100% behind "safety" over freedom. When it comes to drugs and medical devices causing death, the feds will argue that you should have the freedom to choose it even though it may be deadly. That's a deadly, unconstitutional double standard.

"Only 30 percent of fillings given to patients were mercury-filled ones as of 2003, according to the American Dental Association (ADA)."

Who were the 30%? The poorest and most vulnerable among us were likely never given the option to choose a safer filling. The argument FDA makes for keeping toxic teeth available is that "the consumer should have a choice." Funny how that "choice" is never given equal consideration if the substance in question happens to be natural and non-pharmaceutical. Attention FDA dunderheads:

"If a substance is toxic, it is doubly toxic to those most nutritionally-deficient."

The claim that they "only want the poor to have an option" is a poor option, unless they take pleasure in increasing degenerative diseases among those economically-challenged in the inner-cities. Dental mercury is indefensible. Sometimes it just takes a while for the truth to filter through an obscenely large bureaucratic oligarchy. You want to make the FDA bigger? You'd have to be mad as a hatter...