New Minamata Convention amendment will protect children from amalgam use

The Children’s Amendment to the amalgam reduction requirement of the Minamata Convention enters into force on Friday, 24 June 2022.

As a result, all of the 137 nations who are Parties to the treaty (except a handful called “opt-in” parties) must take affirmative steps – ranging from recommendations to complete abolition – to end amalgam use for children, pregnant women, and breastfeeding mothers.

Charles G. Brown, National Counsel, Consumers for Dental Choice and President, World Alliance for Mercury-Free Dentistry (WAMFD) said, “We have succeeded in shifting the Minamata Convention’s emphasis on phasing down amalgam use to phasing it out, starting with the populations most susceptible to the neurotoxic effects of mercury.”

At the 4th Conference of the Parties in Indonesia last March, the powerhouse coalition, the World Alliance for Mercury-Free Dentistry, succeeded in gaining protection from dental amalgam for the most vulnerable consumers.  We won the Children’s Amendment, which requires that Parties “Exclude or not allow, by taking measures as appropriate, or recommend against the use of dental amalgam for the dental treatment of deciduous teeth, of patients under 15 years and of pregnant and breastfeeding women”

Therefore, from June 24 that amendment goes into effect.  From this date forward, all of the 137 nations who are Parties to the treaty (except a handful called “opt-in” parties) must take affirmative steps – ranging from recommendations to complete abolition – to end amalgam use for children, pregnant women, and breastfeeding mothers. We have succeeded in shifting the Minamata Convention’s emphasis on phasing down amalgam use to phasing it out, starting with the populations most susceptible to the neurotoxic effects of mercury.

Now our worldwide team is putting the heat on governments everywhere to fully enforce the Children’s Amendment. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a safety communication cautioning against amalgam use for high-risk populations, including children and most women of childbearing age.  But there’s still work to do, as this revealing recent article explains…

“…we know that many government programs, including Medicaid and the Indian Health Service, continue to place mercury fillings in children’s mouths—in defiance of the FDA’s warnings.”

We will not let any country – including the United States – take a pass on protecting everybody, especially our children, from dental mercury exposure.