Re: Video - Composites instead of Amalgams?

the fillings are in the mouth and continuously leak the BPA.  but, i don't know which is worse, don't know enough about it.  but, one can refrain from using canned foods and certain plastics and such.  if the fillings are there, they cannot be avoided unless replaced. 

i found the article below interesting.  it is just like the amalgam issue.  the government always says we are fine with toxins in us.

Report: widely used chemical could harm humans

By JOAN LOWY
Scripps Howard News Service
April 13, 2005

- There is strong evidence that minute amounts of a chemical ingredient in plastics that most people are exposed to every day can harm reproduction and brain development, a government scientific journal will report Thursday.

Two university research scientists writing in Environmental Health Perspectives, a peer-reviewed journal published by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, report that 94 of 115 scientific studies they examined had found that small amounts of the chemical bisphenol-A, or BPA, can cause harmful effects in laboratory animals, including hyperactivity, learning difficulties and other behaviors that resemble attention-deficit disorders in children.

Other studies that expose tissue cells to BPA at amounts as low as .23 parts per trillion - which is the lowest that current technology can measure the chemical - have found that it mimics the female sex hormone estradiol, which is used in birth-control pills, said Frederick vom Saal, a research scientist at the University of Missouri and lead author of the article.

The studies examined by vom Saal and co-author Claude Hughes, a research scientist at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C., also found that BPA can cause a wide range of reproductive effects in laboratory animals, suggesting the compound may play a role in early puberty, low sperm counts, breast cancer and ovarian disease in people.

"One of the things we are finding out is that this chemical we once thought was very weak is an extremely potent sex hormone," vom Saal said.

BPA is used in hard, clear polycarbonate plastics like baby bottles, water bottles, food containers and the lining of soda cans. More than 6 billion pounds of the chemical are produced every year, making it one of the world's top manufactured compounds.

BPA also has been found in the urine of 95 percent of Americans tested by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The average level of the chemical in people is 1.3 parts per billion, which is 10,000 times greater than the amounts that caused subtle effects in some of the studies, vom Saal said.

Other tests conducted in Europe and Japan found similar levels in blood and urine, indicating that human exposure to the chemical is almost universal in industrialized countries, vom Saal said.

Steve Hentges, director of the American Plastics Council's BPA division, said the article ignored some studies that found the compound did not cause health effects and included other studies, such as the studies of cell tissue, that are not good indicators of possible human health effects.

"The sum of weak evidence does not make for strong evidence," Hentges said. "If you look at all the evidence, our conclusion as well as the conclusion of government agencies around the world, is that (BPA) is not a threat to human health at (current) levels of exposure."

Environmental Protection Agency spokeswoman Suzanne Ackerman said the agency "will certainly carefully consider the results of this new study and other scientific research literature to help us set priorities for the assessment or reassessment of chemicals."

On the Net: http://www.americanplasticscouncil.org

www.ems.org