Hal Huggins - Uninformed Consent: The Hidden Dangers in Dental Care

Autoimmune DiseaseAn Overview

Autoimmune diseases can be quite varied in their clinical manifestations, but there is a definite family resemblance when you look at the causes and effects (or results) of the diseases. Examples of a few autoimmune disturbances are multiple sclerosis, Lou Gehrig's disease, systemic lupus erythematosus, and some forms of arthritis.

The common denominator among these diseases is that your immune system is somehow stimulated or provoked into attacking your own tissue. Normally, there are immune markers on your tissue that keep this from occurring. Your immune system can differentiate your tissue from foreign invaders, and there is no chance of friendly fire from within.

The white blood cells of your immune system are trained to operate a sophisticated surveillance program. Each day almost every cell in your body is examined by your immune system for cellular integrity. By this mechanism, dead and dying cells are eliminated, and new invaders are also discovered and eliminated. Almost all of your cells have a personal code marked on their external surfaces. These codes could be considered the license plates for your cells. When the plate is present, that cell is classified as a self cell. When this plate is altered or absent, however, the cell is identified as nonself, and the immune system proceeds to remove it.

When this alteration of cellular surface occurs in a sick or dying cell, the immune systems performs a vital function in cleaning up the entire body and maintaining a healthy internal environment. However, in the case of autoimmune disease, the immune system is attacking cells that have been wrongly tagged. The immune system is still doing its job, although it has been deluded into attacking the wrong cells.

The heavy metals used in dentistry are some of the agents that cause cellular changes, which result in this chronic misidentification by the immune system. Mercury is especially effective in this task. On attaching to the cell membrane, enough physical change takes place that the cell is then recognized as nonself, and the immune system proceeds with its cleanup function.

Mercury is so efficient in creating autoimmune responses that it is routinely used in university research animal studies involving autoimmune disease. Read the abstracts of scientific articles on autoimmune disease research, and you will often find mercuric chloride or a similar compound administered to the animals to generate the autoimmune response to be studied.

Where mercury attacks is somewhat dependent on a person's genetically weak link. Autoimmune diseases are a result of a genetic predisposition plus an environmental exposure. If you have such a susceptibility and you are exposed to mercury from your fillings, you could well be a candidate for an autoimmune disease. For example, when mercury attacks the nervous system, there are a variety of problems that can result, ranging from minor tremors and numbness of body parts to epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, or other pronounced neurological diseases.

When mercury combines with hormones, inefficient or misdirected performance will often result. Hashimoto's thyroiditis is one good example of a hormonal derangement commonly attributed to an unknown autoimmune etiology. Low body temperature is one simple example of thyroid interference by mercury, and such a problem can lessen within days of proper amalgam removal and replacement with compatible materials. Diabetes or mild elevations of blood sugar can result from an autoimmune process initiated by mercury's attack on the pancreas.

Lupus is an especially good autoimmune disease for demonstrating the effect of amalgam on disease activity. Lupus will typically be monitored by a host of tests, most prominently the antinuclear antibody (ANA) test. Tests for this antibody give an indication of the ongoing level of autoimmune activity and disease severity. We have consistently seen statistically significant drops in the titers, or amounts of antibody, in patients undergoing dental revision with amalgam removal.

Even though many of these autoimmune conditions can be improved or even rarely reversed by removal of the offending fillings, a much better approach would be to avoid the dental toxicity and lessen the chance of contracting the diseases in the first place. Remember that you are in control, but only when you are completely informed.

References for this Chapter

Dixon, Robert L., ed. 1985. Immunology and Immunopharmacology. Target Organ Toxicology Series. New York: Raven Press.

Hood, L. E., I. L. Weissman, W. B. Wood, J. H. Wilson. 1984. Immunology. 2d Ed. Redwood City, Calif.: Benjamin/Cummings Pub.

A Nickel's Worth of Advice

Nickel is one of the most durable yet most carcinogenic metals on this planet. How did we arrive at the decision to use this combination in children's crowns, braces, adult crowns and bridges, and partial dentures?

When our own teeth succumb to the rigors within the mouth, dentistry is charged with replacing what God made, but with a more durable material; for what God made didn't last. The mouth really is a hostile environment. It is warm, moist, and full of nutrientladen saliva, decaying teeth, and soggy gums, so it becomes a haven for bacteria. Teeth are also subject to sudden changes of temperature created by extremes such as coffee and ice cream. Mechanical stresses find their way into the mouth in the form of chewing ice and a combination of hard and soft foods. It is attacked chemically by foods that are highly acidic and highly basic with overtones of salinity and sugar.

All these conditions provide corrosive influences for artificial replacements supplied by the dentist. Replacements must be corrosion resistant, strong, thin, and cheap. Nothing satisfies that equation better than the metal nickel. After all, a nickel's worth of nickel will cover a tooth in the form of a crown.

By itself, nickel melts at too high a temperature for normal casting procedures, and does not form accurate margins. When mixed with beryllium, cobalt, and chromium, nickel alloys provide the mechanical properties accepted by dentistry. The nickel content in many dental applications is over 70%.

Another term for nickel compounds is stainless steel. This fact is not commonly known, for I (HH) have heard many dentists say, I would not use nickel. It is carcinogenic. I use only stainless steel. Same thing. Where were you in chemistry class?

California's Proposition 65 applies to nickel as well as mercury. This law explicitly states that if you expose someone to an item that can produce cancer or birth defects (reproductive harm, specifically), you must inform the recipient before exposing him/her. It does not prohibit you from exposing people, it just says you must inform before you perform.

Let's look at the potential that nickel offers for creating cancer and birth defects, or anything else for that matter. This may help in rendering your informed decision of whether or not you want nickel implanted into your body.

Reports in the Journal of Dental Research (1991) demonstrate how nickel dissolves from dental appliances into the saliva. It also reports that if beryllium is present in the alloy (reasonably common occurrence) the corrosion of the alloy is more rapid than in alloys without beryllium.

As far as nickel being carcinogenic (cancer producing) is concerned, that has been published in the scientific literature for over fifty years. Animal studies demonstrating malignancies as a result of exposure to nickel have been shown in multiple strains of rats, mice, guinea pigs, rabbits, and cats.