Dutch Paper
Dutch research has shown that mercury amalgam dental fillings are electric batteries capable of generating electrical potentials with magnitudes of up to 350 millivolts.
See:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Retrieve&list_uids=2231160&dopt=Citation
(the report is shown in full at Dutch Report In Full)
It appears that the authors of the report made no attempt to determine whether or not the electrical potentials measured are able to dissipate electrical energy through the nerves in people's heads, and there appears to be no reliable scientific information available to indicate whether or not this is the case.
The report contains the following paragraph:
"In most of the subjects potential differences of more than 50 mV were present between restorations. From this frequent occurrence, and the rarity of adverse reactions attributed to metallic restorations, it is concluded that the presence of the latter does not necessarily indicate a health hazard that should be terminated by removal of restorations".
It has been suggested that this passage may be interpreted as an assertion by the authors that "amalgam is safe".
However, whilst the scope of the authors' research appears sufficient to have determined accurately that mercury amalgam dental fillings are electric batteries capable of generating electrical potentials with magnitudes of up to 350 millivolts, it does not extend to any investigation as to whether or not the potentials measured are able to dissipate electrical energy through the nerves in peoples' heads.
For example, if it were the case that the dissipation of electrical energy from fillings through the nerves in people's heads is the cause of a large proportion of reported cases of so-called "depression" (which are very common), then the actual number of cases of adverse effects being caused by mercury amalgam dental fillings might be very high, and the explanation that very few of these adverse effects are actually attributed to "metallic restorations" might be the fact that society (including members of the dental, medical and psychiatric professions) is largely ignorant of the electrical behaviour of dental amalgams.
More specifically, if experimental investigations to determine whether or not the electrical potentials generated by metal dental fillings are able to dissipate electrical energy through the nerves in people's heads have never been carried out, then this allows for the possibility that large numbers of cases of so-called "psychological" or "psychiatric" disorders are not being attributed to the electrical behaviour of metallic dental restorations when they should be.
In concluding that "the presence of the latter does not necessarily indicate a health hazard that should be terminated by removal of restorations." the authors are making allowance, whether intentionally or not, for the possibility that if the dissipation of electrical energy through the nerves in people's heads resulting from the electrical behaviour of metal amalgam dental fillings is capable of causing permanent neurological injuries, then the removal of these fillings will result in neither the repair of the neurological damage done nor the alleviation of any debilitating condition that it may have caused.
The natural function of the human neurological system is to transmit electrical signals. However, it is not the natural function of the human neurological system to be permanently dissipating the electrical energy generated by mixtures of metals placed in teeth.
The paper reports that it can be shown experimentally that mercury amalgam dental fillings are electric batteries capable of generating electrical potentials with magnitudes of up to 350 millivolts.
The scope of the research done does not allow for any conclusion that this is OK.
It would be necessary to carry out experimental investigations to demonstrate that these electrical potentials are not able to dissipate electrical energy through the nerves in people's heads before being able to conclude that this is the case.
And it should be necessary therefore to advise dental patients that mercury amalgam dental fillings are electric batteries capable of generating electrical potentials with magnitudes of up to 350 millivolts, at least until such investigations have been done.
(This page was http://book.boot.users.btopenworld.com/dutch.html )