Dentists Targeted for Mercury Pollution
No one dumps more toxic metal into the nation’s wastewater
treatment plants than U.S. dentists, and activists are demanding
that they start cleaning up after themselves.
‘In a time that everyone from hospitals to coal-burning power
plants are taking steps to reduce emissions of mercury, Health Care
Without Harm, along with other environmental groups, is calling on
dentists to follow suit,’ writes Beth Daley in theBoston
Globe.
While the government has been working to clean up the nation’s
watershed the last 20 years, dentists have done nothing to decrease
the amount of mercury they flush down the drain. Dentists use
aproximately 44 tons of mercury every year to make fillings. These
fillings are considered non-toxic when in the patient’s mouth, but
critics say they become toxic when allowed to decay in the
environment–a point the American Dental Association disputes.
”It’s a very stable material,” said Dan Meyer, director of
science for the American Dental Association. ”We have an ethical
and moral obligation to do good, and we would never do anything to
cause harm to the public.”
Regardless of the known effects, a recent report says that dentists
could capture and recycle the mercury for about $50 per month. Or
they could stop using it altogether, like Boston dentist G. Robert
Evans. ‘It’s going to accumulate in the environment if we don’t
keep it out,’ he tells Daley. ‘So I keep it out.’
–Sara V. Buckwitz
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