[sdiy] [OT] The Gullibility Factor test

[Ian Fritz]

At 07:47 PM 8/30/05, harrybissell wrote:
>The thing that threw me about the 'mercury' question is the idea that
>'dental amalgam' is substantially dangerous.  The mercury is mixed with
>silver, which all the 'old school' people (who went to school when you could
>still play with metallic mercury) know that these metals have a rabid affinity
>for each other.

This belief is based on an old "60 Minutes" piece that has been thoroughly 
discredited.  Mercury from amalgams was supposed to cause diseases such as 
MS, even though the statistics show that it doesn't.  The tragedy is that 
millions of restorations were redone with inferior ceramic 
technology.  Dentists argued for years if it was unethical to make the 
replacements.  But who you gonna believe, Mike Wallace or your dentist?


>Now... what do you put in your mouth that is going to separate the two.. that
>would not outright poison you first ???

Well, this guy in Australia supposedly found traces in sheep that had been 
given amalgam fillings.  Turned out that they used an obsolete protocal for 
making the amalgam.  And it wasn't clear if their measurements were correct.

   Ian