Expert: Amalgam fillings considered safe

AUGUSTA, Ga., April 3 (UPI) -- The controversy surrounding the safety of dental amalgam fillings is unfounded, a U.S. professor said.

Dr. Rod Mackert of the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta told the General Session of the International Association for Dental Research in Miami the only documented health effects of amalgam fillings are rare allergic reactions.

"It's mystifying that people persist in saying there is cause for concern with amalgam fillings when there's no evidence that they cause adverse health effects," Mackert said in a statement.

Dentists have used amalgam -- an alloy of mercury with at least one other metal -- in fillings for more than 200 years. A person would need between 265 and 310 amalgam fillings before even slight symptoms of mercury toxicity could be felt, Mackert said.

A person with seven fillings, which is average, absorbs only about one microgram of mercury daily. About six micrograms are absorbed daily from food, water and air, the Environmental Protection Agency said.

"Anti-amalgam activists say mercury is soaked into metal powder, like water into a sponge, and can come back out of the fillings, but that's not at all true," Mackert said in a statement.

He points out the evaporation rate of mercury from amalgam is a million times lower than from pure mercury.

Although dental mercury accounts for less than .25 percent of mercury re-entering the environment, Mackert said "anti-amalgam activists" claim dental mercury pollutes the environment.