The European Union has decided to ban this product from January 1, 2025 because of its danger to the environment and health.
Have you had cavities? Then you may be concerned. Many French people have in their mouth a product soon to be banned throughout the European Union, mercury. According to the World Health Organization“exposure to mercury, even in small amounts, can cause serious health problems.” The WHO even estimates that “mercury is one of the 10 chemicals of serious concern for public health”.
Mercury ends up in water, before being ingested by fish… which are then eaten by humans. It is therefore as a precaution for the environment and health that an international treaty, the Minamata Convention, was signed in 2013, with the objective of globally reducing the use of mercury. So what does this have to do with your teeth and cavities? The good old filling! Also called dental amalgam, the filling does not actually contain lead as its name might suggest, but a mixture of mercury and other metals.
“With mercury fillings there was a risk, in the long term, of environmental pollution with mercury,” confirms Doctor Christophe Lequart, dental surgeon and spokesperson for the French Union for Oral Health ( UFSBD). And this, even if “for 20 years, practices have been equipped with amalgam collectors”, so that the mercury does not end up in the environment…
The European Union has therefore decided to act. In 2017, a European regulation provided for the ban on dental amalgams for pregnant women and those under 15 from 2018, then for the general population in 2030. It was then modified in June 2024 to bring forward this general ban to January 1, 2025. In a few weeks , mercury will therefore be banned for good in these fillings!
This ban is “a good thing” for Dr Christophe Lequart, even if he wants to be very reassuring about the impact of mercury fillings on health. “No scientific article has proven mercury poisoning caused by amalgam fillings. If there had been, the first affected would have been dental surgeons. Mercury fillings are absolutely not toxic when they are in the mouth “, he assures. However, there are risks when placing or removing these fillings, admits the dental surgeon. Mercury vapors can in fact be released and then “be inhaled in tiny concentrations”, he explains.
From January 1, 2025, dentists will therefore no longer be able to use mercury fillings, and will have to replace them with composite resins, which are already the standard today, in particular because they are more aesthetic than metal. . “I haven’t had dental amalgam placed in more than 10 years!”, confides Dr. Lequart. People who currently have a mercury filling can be reassured: there is “no need to remove amalgam fillings in good condition, only when they are cracked or in the event of renewed decay”, concludes the dental surgeon.