Patient Education

I stopped placing mercury silver fillings in 1980. Although it is an excellent method to control decay in the short term for financially challenged patients, I believed the presence of mercury in the office was not a biohazard risk worth taking for my patients and employees alike. Mercury experiments were the last ones that Sir Isaac Newton performed. Mercury is poisonous to the central nervous system, and thus, Newton and those using mercury to block hats in days of yore became as "mad as a hatter". Even if it were a better material from the point of view of toxicity and leakage, it is still black and ugly. Black ugly smiles can be a serious social handicap, yet they need not be.

Mercury silver fillings leak. After a relatively short period of time decay occurs under even the best of these fillings.