Sorry about that opinion. I felt that I was detecting that feeling in some post. Of course this subject is extremely interesting, particulalrly to technically minded people and to myself.

No need to apologize Jose . Like I stated, I am enjoying it, and when I have the time to delve into all of the links more, I think I will understand it even better.

I find this interesting, also. In one of my former posts, I did mention that some of this might not catch a few people's interest, but I didn't say anyone specifically. I find it interesting because I am minoring in Chemistry. Much good it is going me, trying to understand all of this, but I find it enjoyable to read the conversations and the different viewpoints people have...

Micron said: ..."I have measured significant voltage between fresh upper and lower fillings."
Students, please DO NOT use that line on a first date.

Man, I bet your dentist had the most perplexed look on his face when you stated attaching the red and black wires of your multimeter to the freshly fixed teeth!

Looking on the bright side, you can be sure someone's working on a way to use that voltage to power and/or recharge an iPod.

Micron, forgive me. As a kid I played with enough liquid mercury to evacuate a village today. My Dad said it was harmless. Ignorance bites.
The search for the truth is noble, so long as you realize you won't have any friends when you speak it.

What I want to know is- does anybody have the smoking gun? You know- a gold plated flute that disintegrated in 6 months? (Saxes I don't care about).
If it's such a real concern, I think the news would be all over the flute forums and people would have stopped buying them.

The search for the truth is noble, so long as you realize you won't have any friends when you speak it.


True, very true. The way I interpreted the beginning of this thread was as more of borderline harassment to another forum member. I am glad to see everything turned out okay. I do hope everything is okay, as I have not seen a certain member posting on here recently which seems rather odd.

I try to be aware (to a certain point) of the risks of anything we incorporate in my body, provided it is publicly known.

One problem with amalgams is that they do not last forever. They infiltrate after some years (5 or 10, depending of the quality of the job) and should be replaced.

The decision is hard; in Spain -at least- it looks like dentist are abandoning the traditional amalgam and now use those polymers. It could be due to a successful marketing strategy or part of a genuine concern about the long terms effects of mercury. Honestly, I can only use my intuition and trust it will choose the best of two bad solutions.

Polymers are so frequent in our modern lives that it is very difficult to escape from them. And there are risks, some well known, others probably still hidden by the manufacturers and others still to be discover.

But mercury is very toxic and this has been a well known fact, I suspect for at least 60 years. I also did play with liquid mercury as a child; my father brought home small bottles and showed us how heavy it was and that a finger in the liquid would not get "wet". It was also a common Physics experiment at school. The bottle eventually broke and we collected the funny drops with pieces of paper and disposed of it in the waste. Life was simpler, then...

But I also played with other toxics such as lead and I used lead-tin solder for decades, without taken much precautions.

We had asbestos glued on the inner part of our heating radiators, on the electric iron, my mother had asbestos plates to put over the gas flame to make cooking easier!

Now, for example, they close a complete university if they find asbestos anywhere in the building. ADn if you find them at home (say, you buy a house and discover the cellar is isolated with asbestos, quite common in the colder parts of Europe), well you have to call a specialized company an it will cost you some +10,000$ to get astronaut-dressed guys to get rid of the nuisance.

We did all that, we did not know. We do know now, but can we refrain from using plastics and polymers to contain water, milk, almost all food, cosmetics (toothpaste for example)?

We cannot. Not to speak of PCB, dioxin and other industrial contaminants that pervade in our lifes. The list is far from complete; we should add ionizing radiations and now, looks like, non ionizing electromagnetic signals from TV an cellular phones, also very low frequency electric/magnetic fields from power and domestic electric lines.

We had the poisonous lead in gasoline replaced by a cancerigen and volatile product, the Benzene (up to 5% of "green" gasoline is benzene). So we live and breath in the middle of a cloud of residual aromatics and pyrobenzenes in our cities. Does anybody care?

What is myth and what are real dangers? We do not know for sure. We should try to stay at the safe side in case of doubts, but frankly, there are too many of them.

All this should be scaring to death, but we get easily used to it. What else could we do?

Ha! Micron, I can relate. I am always messing around with things that I could accidentally poison myself with (I haven't used mercury yet!) while I try and make soaps and stuff... Gah.

I think that is a great pick up line! *sarcasum*

Besides telling me mercury is harmless, my Dad also said I should enlist in the Army (this was during the Vietnam "incursion").

I'm starting to think he wasn't very fond of me.

(This is my attempt at setting a forum record for Most Distance Traveled Straying From The Original Topic. I heard a rumor the winner gets a gold plated gizmo.)

yeah, I think we are good candidates for the prize!

We ALL have lives open to scrutiny, courtesy of the IRS.

I wonder, Micron, if your friends could handle my truth-telling. So far it's gotten me fired from several jobs and even banned from 2 doctor's offices.

The truth will set you free...to be exiled by those who aren't interested!

Wow, this topic just got intriguing again...

MT mind, the truth is important, but basically to one´s own knowledge.

You can make yourself a crusade of the truth and get in exchange an infinite amount of enemies. That´s sad, but please consider this:

- the "Truth", is a complicated and obscure concept of academic philosophy. I mean, many, many books have been written about this concept and it still remains elusive.

- there's no rational way to "proof" that <u>your</u> truth is "The" truth. You can accept a certain truth as a Dogma, as is the case in all religions, but you cannot (or should not) use the Dogma to impose your Truth to others.

- Most often, the truth is shared by those who argue about having reason on their arguments (or "having the truth"). One important reason for this is the inherent subjectivity of any human argument and other good reason is the imperfection of our languages. They cannot express with absolute perfection our thoughts (even if our thoughts were that clear).

- Saying the truth directly and Taliban-style not always helps. Quite often does more harm tahn good. One clear case that comes to my mind is terminal illness in older people. They may have cancer, for example. But even if they could die from the illness, they could die before for other causes or in any case they would probably enjoy a better life unknowingly of their illness than stressed and anguished by their situation. It is not a rule, but it happens very often in the medical profession.

- Finally (just for not extending this too much), the need to convince others that they are wrong is basically a selfish feeling, related to our own self-esteem. The wise person should try to discuss issues without confrontation, even if the other side is clearly wrong.

This is something that the participation in these type of open Forums teach us to develop.

One learn this basic rule only through living and surviving.

If you are young enough, it could be these arguments will make no impact on you. I understand that and do not blame you. I believe that many of us have gone trough this fomandatory learning stage.

And I'm still in it.


<Added>

Oops! a few typos and errors.

main one: fomandatory = mandatory
Forum teach = Forum teaches
One learn = One learns

Sorry...

I'm pretty sure that ma dog knows the truth. She is a very well trained Border Collie who helps with herding cattle. Sometimes when you tell her where to go or what to do, she won't-and then move the animals with her own method precisely where you wanted them.

She leaves the room when I practice in the high register. I think that means I need more practice. Or maybe a gold-plated lipplate. I'll have to ask ma dog.

You need to know when to call is quits Micron. Just let it be, or there is going to end up being some unwanted animosity.

Ditto!