It is the Mission of Consumers for Dental Choice to protect the health of dental consumers and the environment by abolishing the use of mercury amalgam dental fillings.
Goals and Strategies:
- To educate dental consumers
- By seeking media exposure for the hazards of mercury amalgams
- Ending the ADA’s notorious gag rule so dentists may give full and truthful information to patients and the public.
- Stopping the ADA’s promotion of mercury amalgams under the deceptive term “silver” fillings, stopping misrepresentations of amalgam as “inert,” and other untruthful information.
- To bring about informed consent
- Consumers should be told the health risks of mercury amalgam, in advance.
- Specific laws in states such as California, Maine, Arizona, and New Hampshire that mandate informed consent should be enforced, as should each of the 50 state consumer protection laws.
- To end the use of mercury amalgams by 2008
- The use of mercury amalgam has declined from two-thirds to one-third over the past decade. It is now time to complete the job!
- Particular attention must be paid to children, pregnant women, and nursing mothers, to whom warnings are already given in many countries and in manufacturer warnings – but which warnings are hidden in the United States.
- To give choice not to receive mercury fillings
- As we move toward mercury-free dentistry, it is important that insurance plans, Medicaid, and other third-party payment systems not mandate mercury fillings.
- Thus we work with business, labor, state Medicaid programs, and others to bring about choice for working families.
- To bring about environmental awareness of the colossal contribution of mercury from amalgam
- Work with environmental enforcement officials, environmental organizations, and environmentally conscious consumers to bring about awareness that choosing amalgam means harming the environment.