http://www.examiner.com/headlines/default.jsp?story=n.dental.0515w


By Tom Harrigan
Associated Press

LOS ANGELES -- An attorney who has taken the American Dental
Association to court in several states over the amount of mercury
used in fillings was the target of a defamation lawsuit filed Tuesday
by the organization.

Shawn Khorrami is involved in lawsuits in California, Ohio,
Maryland and Georgia against the ADA, its state affiliates and others
for allegedly endorsing amalgam filling material with a high content
of mercury compounds.

The Chicago-based ADA, with 141,000 members, is accusing him of
conducting an "orchestrated campaign of lies and distortion to
promote himself and his law firm."

The organization wants Khorrami to stop the action as well as pay
punitive and compensatory damages.

Khorrami called the complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in
Los Angeles, "a desperate attempt on the part of the ADA to further
conceal the truth from the public."

"We stand firmly by the allegations made in our lawsuits: The ADA
has withheld information about the dangers of mercury dental fillings
from the American public. Our cases brought this issue to light and
now the ADA is responding with this baseless complaint. This is
similar to the smear tactics used by the tobacco industry when they
were challenged," Khorrami said in a statement.

Dental activists say what are commonly called silver fillings
actually contain about 25 percent silver by weight and about 50
percent mercury. Mercury exposure can cause cancer, birth defects and
nerve damage. But scientific studies on the effects of mercury in
amalgam -- the term referring to alloys of mercury -- have been
largely inconclusive.

Amalgam fillings cost about half as much as other fillings,
including plastic and porcelain, and last longer.

The most recent lawsuit handled by Khorrami, filed in Georgia
last month, seeks damages that could exceed $100 million. It claims
mercury from dental fillings, vaccine preservatives and power plants
with emissions that contain mercury caused or worsened the conditions
of nine autistic children.

The ADA lawsuit said Khorrami has wrongly accused the
organization of defrauding and endangering the public and of
pressuring dentists to use amalgam fillings because the ADA has a
vested economic interest in the material.

The ADA "has no financial (or other economic) stake in dental
amalgam or the use of mercury," the organization said in its
complaint.

Khorrami said Tuesday the ADA receives fees for its seal of
approval on material used in dentistry.

On the Web:

American Dental Association: http://www.ada.org

Attorney Shawn Khorrami: http://www.khorrami.com





A 'campaign of lies'
ADA sues 'self-promoting' L.A. lawyer for defamation

By James Berry

http://www.ada.org/prof/pubs/daily/0205/0514suit.html

A Los Angeles attorney who notes on his own Web site that he "has
been extensively involved in [amalgam] litigation with the American
Dental Association" has promoted himself and his law practice through
a campaign of "lies and distortion" against the ADA, the Association
alleges in a defamation suit filed May 14.

Attorney Shawn Khorrami has used news releases and his Web site to
spread "false, defamatory and malicious accusations" that the ADA
is "defrauding and endangering the lives of the American public" by
supporting the use of dental amalgam restorations, the ADA says in
its civil complaint, filed in Los Angeles U.S. District Court,
Central District of California.

The Association has requested a jury trial and seeks compensatory and
punitive damages. ADA officers and trustees authorized the lawsuit at
their April meeting.

In a statement on the suit, ADA President D. Gregory Chadwick said
the Association could not stand idly by and allow Mr. Khorrami
to "impugn the reputation of the ADA" in an effort to "erode the
public trust that we have built through more than 140 years of caring
for the nation's oral health."

Dr. Chadwick said the ADA welcomes "fair and honest debate" on all
aspects of dental care, but cannot tolerate "libelous, unwarranted
attacks."

Among other allegations, the complaint says Mr. Khorrami has accused
the ADA of exerting "undue and unfair pressure" on dentists to
continue using amalgam because the Association has a "vested economic
interest" in the material.

In truth, the ADA "has no financial (or other economic) stake in
dental amalgam or the use of mercury," the Association says in its
complaint. It says the defendant's "self-promoting campaign of lies
and distortion targeting the ADA is based on defamatory statements
that Khorrami published with reckless disregard for their truth or
falsity."

The Association, notes the complaint, has filed suit "to vindicate
its reputation" and to stop the defendant's "campaign of lies."

The ADA says Mr. Khorrami is well aware that many leading scientific
and consumer organizations, independent of the Association, have
attested to the safety of dental amalgam. Findings from six of those
organizations are cited in the ADA's complaint (see related story).

Dr. James B. Bramson, ADA executive director, notes that amalgam is
just one of a wide range of dental materials that the Association
evaluates to help dentists and patients choose safe and effective
treatments.

Added Dr. Bramson, "The ADA is a strong proponent of choice, with
patients and their dentists discussing the full range of treatment
options, including filling materials, and together deciding what is
clinically appropriate."

Thanks to the ADA's efforts in education, research and
professionalism, he said, Americans enjoy the highest standard of
oral health care in the world.

"A lot of good people worked hard to achieve this standard, and to
build and maintain the ADA's good name," said the executive
director. "We will not capitulate to the calculated, self-promotional
aims of the defendant. We will protect the good name of the ADA from
such unwarranted, malicious assaults."

The complete text of the complaint is available online.



Mercury Ban Promotes Lawsuits, Not Health
Friday, May 10, 2002

By Steven Milloy



http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,52391,00.html

Junk science has united quite the political odd couple - Reps. Diane
Watson, D-Calif., and Dan Burton, R-Ind. They recently co-sponsored a
bill to end the use of mercury in dental fillings.

The bill would: ban dental amalgam containing mercury from children
under 18 and pregnant and lactating women; require dentists to warn
patients that mercury is "highly toxic" and poses "health risks"; and
phase out mercury amalgam by 2007.

Rep. Watson, a Congressional Black Caucus member from Watts who
claims to be "chemically sensitive," has targeted mercury-containing
dental amalgam since CBS' 60 Minutes spotlighted the scare in
December 1990.

Rep. Burton, the anti-Clinton lightning rod, only recently converted
to anti-mercury-ism. Burton blames thimerosal, a mercury-based
preservative used in vaccines, for causing his grandson's autism.

Also in on the mercury scare are - who else - unscrupulous personal
injury lawyers. Class action lawsuits have been filed against the
American Dental Association and the California and Maryland state
dental associations seeking the return of monies paid for mercury-
containing fillings - the great majority of fillings ever done.

Lawsuits alleging thimerosal causes autism also have been filed
against vaccine manufacturers.

As to mercury in dental fillings, the lawsuits are among the best
evidence that mercury in amalgam is harmless. Though the complaints
allege that mercury-containing amalgam is harmful, they contain no
specific allegations of harm to anyone.

This is hardly surprising.

Mercury has been a major ingredient of dental amalgam (35-42 percent)
for more than 150 years. No other filling material has been proven to
be safer, more durable and more cost-effective.

The National Institutes of Health reports only about 100 documented
cases of allergy to mercury mentioned in the scientific literature
since 1906 - despite billions of uses of mercury amalgam and tens of
millions more of thimerosal-containing vaccines.

Mercury can have toxic effects on the nervous system - but only at
sufficiently high exposures. As is the basic rule in toxicology, it
is the dose that makes the poison. Paracelsus, the father of this
principle, successfully used this principle - and mercury - to treat
syphilis in the 16th century.

Fillings containing mercury typically emit about 1-3 millionths of a
gram (micrograms) per day. An individual might be unavoidably exposed
to another 5-6 micrograms of mercury through food, water and air.
Such exposures are well below the World Health
Organization's "acceptable daily intake" for mercury, about 30
micrograms per day.

Keep in mind that the ADI is not a "safety" level; it's a level set
by regulatory agencies that is anywhere from tens to thousands of
times below dose levels reported to cause biological effects in
animal experiments. The ADI is set well below effect levels to
provide a wide margin of safety for potential exposures.

Amalgam expert Dr. Rod Mackert says even the most sensitive
individual would need about 450 fillings before exhibiting even
slight symptoms of mercury toxicity.

Finally, even the hyper-cautious Food and Drug Administration
concluded in March, 2002, that "No valid scientific evidence has ever
shown that amalgams cause harm to patients with dental restorations,
except in the rare case of allergy."

But why let a lack of factual support get in the way of a feel-good
law and a chance at the lawsuit jackpot?

Rep. Burton's anti-mercury rationale and the vaccine-related lawsuits
are similarly deficient.

It's true many children may have been exposed to relatively high
levels of mercury through vaccines preserved with thimerosal. Even
so, there's no evidence these exposures harmed any child - a point
reaffirmed by FDA researchers in a May 2001 article in the journal
Pediatrics.

Moreover, no one knows what causes autism. A National Institutes of
Health working group concluded in 1995 that autism likely was mostly
genetic in origin. No evidence indicates that late-pregnancy or after-
birth events - including extensively studied mass mercury poisonings -
are associated with autism.

Burton's desperate rush to blame an after-birth event for causing
autism isn't unusual.

Autistic behavior becomes apparent as children progress from saying a
few words to generating more complex language, at ages of 16-36
months. Parents whose children "turn" autistic often erroneously
associate the onset of autistic behavior with some contemporaneous
event such as vaccination.

But public alarm about vaccine safety can be a public health problem.
Outbreaks of measles, for example, occurred in the U.K. and Ireland
where many worried parents shunned the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR)
vaccine.

Instead of filling our minds with fear and the U.S. Code with
needless laws (and our courtrooms with meritless lawsuits), Reps.
Watson and Burton and the personal injury lawyers should fill
themselves, as appropriate, with facts and scruples.

Steven Milloy is the publisher of JunkScience.com , an adjunct
scholar at the Cato Institute and the author of Junk Science Judo:
Self-defense Against Health Scares and Scams (Cato Institute, 2001).


Final QUESTION:

WOULD YOU ever BUY any USED CAR FROM ADA?

Answer:

ONLY if it is made of PURE mercury and can make 0 -100
in 4.6 sec!