I don't know whether almalgam fillings have a significant health risk, but I do know that the new fillings in my teeth are more aesthetically pleasing than the ugly old amalgam filling I had replaced last year.
Our old dentist stopped using amalgam and our new one doesn't either.
Mercury is one of the most toxic metals known, even worse than lead. We are advised by the state where I live to limit our consumption of fresh water fish, because of minute traces of mercury in them. Yet we're not supposed to worry about maybe several grams of mercury in our mouths, some of which is being released every time we eat? They try to claim the mercury is "chemically combined." Heck, I've seen the rotten, corroded appearance of old mercury amalgam fillings. That alloy is not stable! I think it breaks down, just as brass plumbing fixtures are leached of their zinc by acid water. I think the dental profession has acted shamefully in continuing to foist this junk on the public for decades.
The report speaks of "outside panels," as if to imply they could not possibly be biased. Dr. Kieburtz is in fact on the faculty of the Univ. of Rochester School of Medicine & Dentistry. Is anyone really naive enough to think he is going to turn on his colleagues in the dental profession, who have been planting this crap in people's mouths for years and claiming it was harmless, knowing that an adverse report could lead to $millions in lawsuits?
I don't like to rage against Drs. as a group, but remember that this profession pompously assured us for decades that ulcers were caused by "stress," and viciously attacked the Dr. who first proposed that they were in fact bacterial infections (which was eventually accepted by everyone).
The symptoms of heavy metal poisoning, esp. at low levels, are often subtle and can be confused with those of other illnesses and conditions. How can they be so damn sure that mercury fillings are safe? Things like mercury and lead are dangerous partly because they have no beneficial function in the human body at all, and we and our ancestors never evolved means of dealing with them, because we were not exposed to significant levels until mining and industry began releasing them a few centuries ago. They are not like other metals, e.g. iron, which occurs naturally in food and water, and is necessary in appropriate quantities.
Of course, most of this has a financial motive. Insurance companies don't want to reimburse the dentist for the price of tooth colored fillings on posterior teeth. (They are more expensive.) Usually they will only reimburse the price of an amalgam. The patient ends up paying the difference. I think that amalgams may be illegal in Japan, due to dumping of scrap amalgam into the sewage systems. The Japanese are on the forefront of developing more durable tooth-colored resin materials. For now, most American dentists will continue to place amalgams. They're cheap, durable, and don't take as much time to place.