Re: Dubious mercury poisoning results

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 43, No. 9, November 2001, Page 496 Letters

In Dr Sehmer’s warning [BCMJ 2001;43(6):320] about dubious mercury poisoning results, is he seriously suggesting that mercury is not toxic, that dental amalgams are not a significant source of mercury, and that Doctor’s Data of Chicago are reporting spurious results? Can he produce one primary research article that scientifically proves that mercury is either non-toxic or does not leach out in significant amounts from dental amalgam fillings?

Gross and Jarrison have shown in vivo studies that a single amalgam with an occlusal area of 0.4 cm on average would release 15 micrograms a day or half of the amount stipulated as safe by the US Environmental Protection Agency! [1] Fleva has shown experimentally that corrosion of amalgams releases about 30 micrograms a day.[2] He also calculates that the transition of only 1 gram of gamma-1 (Ag2Hg3) to AgHg in 10 years would release 170 000 micrograms of Hg, giving an exposure of 46 micrograms a day.

Dr Sehmer’s remarks that levels of Hg 20 to 30 times that of the reference levels reported by a Chicago lab are not alarming when reported by a conventional lab is as confusing as it is misguided. Doctor’s Data, a major US laboratory, participates in a voluntary quality control program where known concentrations of heavy metals are randomly tested. Their accuracy approaches 100%. I find Quack Watch to be a biased web site with very little primary research.

I would recommend he read Does Mercury from Dental Amalgams Influence Systemic Health? by Gary A. Strong.[3] This author has collected over 300 primary scientific articles on the effects of mercury in the human body.

It is presumptuous to remove potential hope of treatment to the 5% of patients acknowledged by the ADA to be highly sensitive to mercury.

—Peter J. Nunn, MB 
Victoria

Dr Nunn has a complementary and general practice and has been using chelation for heavy metal problems for the last 6 years.—ED.

Peter J. Nunn, MB. Re: Dubious mercury poisoning results. BCMJ, Vol. 43, No. 9, November, 2001, Page(s) 496 - Letters.



Above is the information needed to cite this article in your paper or presentation. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends the following citation style, which is the now nearly universally accepted citation style for scientific papers:
Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N Engl J Med. 2002;347:284-7.

About the ICMJE and citation styles

The ICMJE is small group of editors of general medical journals who first met informally in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1978 to establish guidelines for the format of manuscripts submitted to their journals. The group became known as the Vancouver Group. Its requirements for manuscripts, including formats for bibliographic references developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), were first published in 1979. The Vancouver Group expanded and evolved into the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which meets annually. The ICMJE created the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals to help authors and editors create and distribute accurate, clear, easily accessible reports of biomedical studies.

An alternate version of ICMJE style is to additionally list the month an issue number, but since most journals use continuous pagination, the shorter form provides sufficient information to locate the reference. The NLM now lists all authors.

BCMJ standard citation style is a slight modification of the ICMJE/NLM style, as follows:

  • Only the first three authors are listed, followed by "et al."
  • There is no period after the journal name.
  • Page numbers are not abbreviated.


For more information on the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, visit www.icmje.org

BCMJ Guidelines for Authors

Leave a Reply