well, i don't know if it affects the congress as a whole in that manner, but it certainly effects all the individuals who have it to some degree. mercury causes irrational thoughts and emotional outbursts and eventual reclusion. it is a heavy metal. if you study heavy metal poisoning, yes, many people are going around acting in ways that humans shouldn't be acting, because they are getting these poisons. we don't think of mercury as being as bad as arsenic, but that is only because when people use arsenic, they are trying to kill someone generally and give large doses. but the symptoms of both are pretty close to the same, and if we got higher amounts from our teeth, we'd see the overt symptoms they see with arsenic poisoning. mercury is much more toxic, so we cannot give people much more than what leaks out of fillins, or they will get very ill. that is one thing people fail to understand when they think mercury fillings are pretty harmless. i know a gorl who swallowed a large amalgam one night and woke up the next day with multiple sclerosis and never walked again. i, myself, have work up before and hit the floor and couldn't walk for 2 weeks, had to be carried to the hospital. those days are long gone, thank god, but they wouldn't be if i had kept the fillings.