Health experts and elected environmentalists are calling for a law to ban the use of dental mercury by dentists.
Its opponents believe it would be toxic to the nervous, immune, hormonal and reproductive systems. However, at present in France, 70% of caries fillings contain dental mercury. Faced with these supposed risks, elected representatives of the environmental health network (RES) and health experts say “stop mercury” and want it banned. But according to professionals, this solution is, it true, antibacterial, and can last 30 or 40 years.
France absorbs a third of dental mercury
In this area, we look like a bad student. At Union and European level, the French are those who perform the most cavities fillings by having recourse, once in two, to dental amalgam. According to a report published in 2012 by the European Commission, France alone weighs a third of the 55 tonnes of mercury used each year in the Union for the production of these amalgams.
Elected environmentalists recalled that in October, 144 nations had committed, within the framework of the Minamata convention, to reducing emissions but also the production and use of mercury.
As such, they underlined the “isolated position” of France, while several countries such as Switzerland, Georgia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Armenia have already banned it. In addition, MEP EELV, Michèle Rivasi, reported that several measures had already been taken at European level against mercury.
So, so that France is no longer lagging behind, anti-mercury activists have asked the government to take action. They proposed several measures to define the main lines of a law.
The anti-mercury bill
Geoffrey Begon, general delegate of “No to dental mercury”, indicated that this law could program the ban on mercury by 2018, or even as early as 2015. According to him, it would be necessary, according to him, to immediately ban filling milk teeth with amalgam and stop training dentists to install amalgam, but instead offer initial and continuing training to learn how to install alternative materials.
These elected officials and experts also propose to train the dental professions in toxicology and good practices, to enforce the labor legislation for pregnant employees (by preventing access to dentists and assistants to parts saturated with mercury) and to institute checks in the offices to avoid infringements.
They also recommend developing patient information, in particular before placing any dental material, and performing toxicity tests on all dental materials.
Substitute materials on the rise
Finally, according to a survey unveiled during the examination of the 2014 Social Security financing bill, the sale of pre-dosed amalgam capsules would have decreased by 38% between 2007 and 2011. At the same time, the use of substitute products increased over the same period, from more than 9% to 91%, depending on the packaging, then said Bernard Cazeneuve, Minister responsible for the Budget.
On this occasion, the Minister had also indicated that the French Dental Association was in the process of making this commitment via an agreement with the State which should be signed at the end of the year for a period of three years.
In particular, it provides for the compulsory installation of an amalgam separator containing mercury to recover this product in dental offices, the promotion of alternatives to fillings containing mercury amalgam, the promotion of the non-use of these amalgams in the milk teeth, and the information of the patients on the existence of alternatives solutions.
In the meantime, the Ministry of Health, Marisol Touraine, asked the National Council of the Order of Physicians (Cnom) and the National Order of Dentists, to reduce the use of these amalgams and not to not use them for baby teeth.
.