Sigh.

This is one of those things that makes being a mother so incredibly difficult (and I use the gendered noun advisedly, because in every family I've ever encountered it's the mom who is in charge of health issues). It's an issue that makes you scramble to find that just-right spot between protecting your child from harm and total crackpot-dom.

When my middle son was about four, he developed a couple of cavities. When I asked for tooth-colored fillings, the dentist thought I was crazy. "In a baby tooth?" he asked, incredulous. I pointed out that I didn't think mercury was a good thing to put into my pre-schooler's mouth, and he assured me that it wasn't any kind of an issue. He eventually used the enamel-colored one, and I paid a huge amount for it, and eventually lost my convictions on the subject. My youngest has terrible teeth, and after many lectures on the subject of why amalgam fillings are totally safe, and paying astronomical dental bills, I let the subject drop.

So now the FDA admits that mercury in fillings can, in fact, be problematic, and my daughter has a mouthful of them. I remember a book I read while I was pregnant with her -- it was titled Having Faith, and was written by an ecologist while she was pregnant with her first child. She talked about environmental hazards, and why the burden for guarding against harm from them falls on mothers rather than industries. Expectant mothers are, for instance, not supposed to have even half a glass of wine once or twice, even though there's no proof it's bad for the fetus -- since the safe level isn't readily apparent, it's better to be safe than sorry, but industries aren't held to anything like the same standard. No champagne on New Years if you are expecting, but since there's no definitive proof at what level a known neurotoxin will cause harm, why not fill little kids' mouths with them?

It doesn't help that I was reading that book around the time that the FDA removed tuna from its list of fish that were too contaminated with mercury to be safe for pregnant women, not because it didn't have too much, but because the tuna industry might suffer if mothers stopped buying it.

Ugh.

My kids all have a dentist appointment in a month. Let's hope everyone is cavity free, because I'm not sure my budget can accommodate the poison-free kind.

Topics: Health , Dental

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