Sharon Resident Raising Awareness of Dental Amalgam Issues

Promoting awareness of the toxicity of mercury amalgam and other dental materials is the goal of a Sharon resident's new initiative. Laura Henze Russell told the Sharon Board of Health on Monday night that she was "quite ill" starting in March 2011 before getting advice that traced her health issues to the amalgam in her dental work. Those issues, as well as chronic ones that "I had for two decades," began going away this March, she said. She said she "rapidly became better." Russell said she is starting "One Town, One Challenge," involving "inviting the town, the schools, the library, cable TV, individuals, families, citizens just to ways to engage and educate ourselves about these issues over the next year." The board invited Russell to meet with it again to present more information after her efforts get underway. However, the board said the issue's scope, and that it's being debated worldwide, will keep it from endorsing Russell's initiative right now. "We have no scientific basis for raising discussion about this, one way or the other," member Stanley Rosen said. "It's an international problem. We're not international in scope. I don't think it's within our bailiwick to get involved." Vice Chairman Jay Schwab, a retired dentist, questioned some of Russell's information. He also said he is seeing amalgam use in dentistry declining. However, Schwab also noted that Scandanavian countries have eliminated using amalgam in dentistry. "Scandanavia has always been a forerunner in a lot of the dental research. And the fact that they've taken that approach has opened my eyes a little bit that maybe there is a little more to this amalgam problem than the ADA and some of the American groups are willing to admit," he said. Russell said she plans to have a website for her initiative. She said she is seeking interns and volunteers."