Environmental health scientist, Sue Casteel of The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR – a subset of the CDC) discusses adverse health effects from mercury vapor exposure. Amalgam fillings are made from 50% elemental mercury and when doing a scientific literature review, the World Health Organization (1991, 2003) has twice found that amalgam fillings are by far the largest exposure of mercury in the population who have them, which is more than 120 million people in the United States.
Elemental mercury starts to release invisible, colorless, odorless toxic vapors at -21 degree’s. The amount of vapor increases with heat and exposed surface area. One can visualize the shadow of the vapor being released from elemental mercury utilizing the well established scientific principles of atomic absorption. Below is a video from the Michigan Department of Community Health (MDCH) discussing how toxic the vapors are that are released from elemental mercury. MDCH also visually demonstrates the toxic vapors constantly emitted from elemental mercury… this is the exactly same kind of mercury that makes up 50% of an amalgam filling.
