Here’s a report of Consumers for Dental Choice's progress in 2015:
- Armed with the Minamata Convention’s amalgam action requirement, we have organized with dentists to challenge U.S. insurance companies to pay for mercury-free fillings, community members to take on Medicaid programs that mandate amalgam in Connecticut and Oregon, and environmental groups to tell the State Department and FDA to take steps to stop dental mercury use.
- The worldwide network of allies we built during the Minamata Convention negotiations continues to push our cause on the international front – from finally convincing the European Union’s Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR) to recommend against amalgam use in children and pregnant women to holding regional conferences to develop amalgam phase-out plans throughout Asia and Africa.
- We have more support than ever from dentists (who are contributing in record numbers), major environmental groups (who signed onto the letter to the State Department), and the United Nations Environment Programme (which co-sponsored a conference with the mercury-free dentistry movement for the first time this year).
We still have many challenges to address in 2016, including reforming insurance coverage ... budging the ever-recalcitrant FDA ... and finding new ways to raise public awareness about mercury-free dentistry. But we’re confident that so long as we keep plugging away, we will succeed!