Uh oh, Paradigm shift ahead. At least, if you can believe the apparent results of this new study, which indicates that I've been spending far too much time/money/effort worrying about the content of the fillings in my kid's mouths. (Er, not that they have any. Nope, their teeth are Colgate perfect! Because cavities in THEIR mouths are obviously MY fault, if you can believe that damn dentist we no longer go to.)
Yeah. Turns out that mercury amalgam fillings, long avoided by the AP/Waldorfy people I've been hanging with, may be okay after all. Uh, but read this before deciding:
1. The study looked at only about 500 kids.
2. But they were aged 8-12 and were studied for 7 years.
3. What was being looked at was three things: hard neurological signs of damage (indicating damage to specific neural structures) and soft ones (subtle
signs of central nervous system dysfunction that likely point to
immature sensory-motor skills rather than to any structural damage in
the brain), plus signs of tremor. And they didn't find much.
4. Mercury can still be really really bad for you in other ways. Bad!
5. There's still an ongoing controversy about dental amalgam fillings (my mouth is full of them, thank you), and Norway banned them the 1st of this year.
So I'm still skeptical, but open to that paradigm shift especially if somebody gives me a bit more (and better) evidence that it's warranted.
What about you? Where do you stand on the whole mercury-filling thing? Do you have composite fillings put in your kids' teeth? Or yours, for that matter? Or do you not worry about it? Or, er, are your teeth perfect?
Photo: www.foogle.biz
