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© Tim Boyle/Getty ImagesMercury Protest: Mercury-free activists protest the continuing FDA approval of mercury in dental amalgam fillings.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has agreed to review the safety of dental amalgam, which is 50 percent mercury, beginning with a public hearing on Dec. 14 and 15. A final ruling is expected by mid 2011.

The FDA's controversial 2009 Final Rule upholding the safety of dental amalgam sparked a public outcry and prompted several groups - dental professionals as well as citizens - to file legal petitions for reconsideration with the FDA.

According to FDA watchdog Jim Dickinson of Fdaweb.com, the FDA appears ready to reverse itself this time.

"They're laying the groundwork to make a reversal appear legally consistent," he said, referring to FDA's interest in considering information previously overlooked as well as a 2009 report on risk assessment by the National Academy of Sciences. "It appears the agency is aware that it's on the losing side, and as the scientific evidence grows, it's time to move."

On the other hand, "FDA hopes to defer to its dental products advisory panel, thus much depends on who gets named to the panel and whether they're up to the job," warned Jim Love, attorney for the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology (IAOMT), an anti-mercury dental association sponsoring two of the four legal petitions.

Enough evidence exists to allow the FDA to ban amalgam, as Norway and Sweden have done. However, the FDA's ruling on the petitions is unlikely to be an outright ban, since agencies don't reverse themselves abruptly.

The ruling may be a tiered approach involving some combination of warning, informed consent, and ban, depending on patient risk group, or it could be a reclassification of amalgam, requiring additional scrutiny, which could eventually lead to a ban.

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Source: Rowdiness.westonaprice.org