Dental amalgam

23.1.2009

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0518/09
by Françoise Grossetête (PPE‑DE)
to the Commission

The Alzheimer Plan was a genuine priority for the French Presidency of the European Union in 2008.

Many researchers, such as, for example, Professor Boyd Haley of the University of Kentucky, are studying the cerebral tissue damage caused by mercury in the context of degenerative diseases, with a particular research focus on autism and Alzheimer’s disease. They report that it is now proved that the mercury load in human organisms in the western world is attributable to dental amalgam, and not to environmental pollution or eating fish, as people would have us believe. They also state that any competent chemist can determine that mercury is released by dental amalgam and that to ignore this aspect of mercury exposure is absurd. In France, the work, recompensed by INSERM, of Dr Philippe Amouyel, Director of the Epistemology and Public Health Unit of the Institut Pasteur, has shown the presence of the gene APOE4 on certain chromosomes and demonstrated that people with the APOE4 gene have a four times greater chance of developing Alzheimer's disease than others, because the gene inhibits mercury elimination, causing the mercury to be deposited in the brain.

Why does the Commission accept that metal amalgams used in dentistry are an appropriate material although they contain a heavy metal? Luxembourg is calling for dental amalgams to be banned. Could the Commission not envisage giving financial support to research aimed at finding a filling material that is just as durable and easy to use?

OJ C 189, 13/07/2010