New International Law To End Use of Mercury-Based Dental Fillings

U.S. Should End Amalgam Use Now, Consumers for Dental Choice urges 

GENEVA, Nov. 11, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The nations of the world have enacted an end to dentistry's notorious and toxic amalgam era.  On 7 November, without dissent, they amended the Minamata Convention on Mercury to stop the use of mercury-based dental fillings as of 1/1/2034. 

Dental amalgam, deceptively marketed as "silver fillings", is 50% mercury.  Modern dentists stopped using amalgam years ago, but its use persists throughout the United States due to (1) entrenched bureaucracies unwilling to change (like the Pentagon), (2) cut-rate insurance plans (like from Delta Dental), and (3) "drill-fill-and-bill" dentists who trivialize amalgam's toxicity.

"Enshrining into international law this ban on mercury in the mouth is a milestone for human rights," said Charlie Brown, executive director of the Washington-based Consumers for Dental Choice, www.toxicteeth.org.  "We are grateful to all the nations of the great continent of Africa who spearheaded this Amendment, to the European Union which bans amalgam, and to the three whose late endorsement turned the tide: the United States, Brazil, and the World Health Organization."

"The environment, the public health, and workplace safety necessitate that the United States end amalgam now—not run out the clock," Brown said.  "We call on federal and state department heads to order their dental bureaucracies to stop their use.  Insurance companies should remove amalgam from their policies.  Pro-mercury dentists must stop exploiting dental patients by withholding information about amalgam's risks." 

At the state level in 2025, the movement to ban amalgam in America began in earnest.  Brown points to the Providence Declaration for Mercury-Free Dentistry for Rhode Island, https://www.instagram.com/p/DQekmCoD2ED/, and the advisory by the State of Florida to stop placing amalgam in routine dental care, https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/FLDOH/bulletins/3ef6997 .

Since 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has warned dentists to stop placing amalgam use in children; women who are pregnant, breastfeeding, or planning to become pregnant; and people with kidney dysfunction, neurological impairment, or sensitivities to amalgam components, https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-issues-recommendations-certain-high-risk-groups-regarding-mercury-containing-dental-amalgam . Many American dentists disdainfully disregard these warnings. 

Contact: Charlie Brown, Consumers for Dental Choice, [email protected], phone/text [1] 202.246.7642

SOURCE Consumers for Dental Choice