From: GUY M. and DOREEN C. RANDAL [gmrandal@worldnet.att.net]
Sent: Sunday, June 23, 2002 4:53 AM
To: president@whitehouse.gov
Cc: maria@cantwell.senate.gov; senator_murray@murray.senate.gov;
fdadockets@oc.fda.gov; virginia@wsda.org
Subject: Dental Mercury In The Environment Report

Importance: High

[For your review, The Uncontrolled Release of Dental Mercury In The
Environment, report by Mercury Policy Project and Healthcare Without Harm.
(Please distribute)

Respectfully,

Mercury Awareness Team Of Washington
Consumers For Dental Choice Northwest
38th Legislative District
www.toxicteeth.net

Dental Offices are the 3rd largest users of mercury in the U.S., using over
45 tons per year.   Most of this eventually ends up in the environment,
with dental offices being documented to release about 17 tons per year into
sewers along with the approx. 8 tons per year people with amalgam excrete
into sewers.   This is enough to contaminate all fish in the U.S. to
dangerous levels, since it only takes 1/2 gram to contaminate all fish in a
10 acre lake to dangerous levels.  The mercury in sewer sludge is documented
to go into crops or be outgassed as emissions, resulting in high levels in
rain all over the U.S.

     Additionally solid amalgam waste from dental offices mostly goes into
landfills or incinerators.   In landfills such mercury has been found to be
methylated by soil bacteria and outgassed and most going into incinerators
ends up in emissions.    So most of the mercury used in dental offices ends
up in the environment, and is proliferating there and in the food chain.

    The new study is
Dentist the Menace: The Uncontrolled Release of Dental Mercury in the
Environment, Mercury Policy Project and Healthcare Without Harm, June 2002,
www.mercurypolicy.org/new/documents/DentistTheMenace.pdf

The DAMS Fact Sheet updated the most is  DAMSPR2
www.home.earthlink.net/~berniew1/damspr2f.html

Other fact sheets also updated are  PR1,  PR3, Pr12, and PR20(not formally
released)       the updates to these mostly involve changes regarding
language on mercury vapor pressure and volatility.

    The case is now strong enough for anyone who has the time to be able to
document the case that dental mercury is the main unregulated mercury waste
in the U.S. and largest contributer to the environmental harm noted above.

  Its time to make a major effort to educate the public and officials
regarding this issue, and encourage state legislatures to pass legislation
and cities and counties to pass ordaniances on this issue.  Several states,
cities, and counties have already done so.