Surprise FDA Ruling
When mercury amalgam made the news on July 29, 2009, however, it was not to warn of its hazards. Rather, it was to report the FDA's surprise ruling that mercury fillings are safe. The ruling came after years of foot dragging by the FDA and a wave of consumer lawsuits. A growing consumer movement had amassed so much evidence for the dangers posed by mercury dental fillings that when a court finally ordered the FDA to come out with a ruling, the plaintiffs announced, "We won! But instead of the declaration they expected, the FDA imposed no restrictions on the use of mercury amalgam. Dentists were not even required to inform their patients that "silver fillings are composed mostly of mercury. The FDA conceded that it did not know if amalgam was harmful to children under six, pregnant women, or nursing mothers, but it took no steps to protect them. It even pulled from its website an existing neurological risk advisory that said, "Dental amalgams contain mercury, which may have neurotoxic effects on the nervous systems of developing children and fetuses.
Consumer advocates were stunned, as the FDA had earlier agreed to strengthen its warnings against mercury amalgam fillings. The evidence against mercury amalgam dental fillings was considered so compelling that Sweden, Norway, and other countries had already banned their use entirely. Degussa, Germany's largest producer of amalgam and the world's largest producer of metals for dentistry, completely shut down its amalgam production after a federal court ruled that dentists who used it faced legal liability. The FDA was expected to follow suit.
Why its unexpected about-face? Charles Brown, of the National Counsel for consumers for Dental Choice, suggests it had to do with a change in personnel. In May 2009, Dr. Margaret Hamburg succeeded to the post of FDA Commissioner. The Wall Street Journal noted that for five years before that, she served on the board of Henry Schein Inc., a $4 billion firm that distributes medical and dental supplies, including vaccines. Brown wrote skeptically:
"Washington is famous for the revolving door -- those in the party out of power take highly paid corporate positions, then return to government to bail out their benefactors. The new FDA Commissioner, Margaret Hamburg, worked in the Clinton Administration, then went out and became a director at the dental products colossus Henry Schein, earning a quarter million dollars a year for the handful of hours it takes to be a director. Corporations do this because they know the other party will return to power, at which time the corporations will call in their chits.
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