robin p clarke

Extensive evidence of lack of truthfulness and credibility of those who defend the use of dental amalgam

2010-09-30T23:36:00.000-07:00

Those who defend dental amalgam as being supposedly safe habitually fail to mention the evidence which runs counter to their assertions.

(a) Pro-amalgam official reports, authored by committees of supposed experts, fail to mention the studies that run counter to their assertions of safety. And criticisms pointing this out are ignored, as if they did not exist.

(b) The defenders then habitually cite those grossly-biased reports as supposedly showing that amalgam is safe, but never cite the other official reports which conclude it is harmful (or uncertain) instead.

(c) Innumerable other documents and presentations defending amalgam as supposedly categorically safe likewise fail to alert the readers to the existence of these many contradicting facts.

(d) Whenever patients appear to possibly have dental amalgam poisoning, or themselves suggest that they might have, the NHS take extensive evasive measures to avoid any proper investigation of the possibility.

These habitual omissions and evasions, of which instances are indicated below, call into question whether any testimony of the defenders of amalgam is worthy to be believed.

Historical reasons to suspect harm

Pliny (23-79 AD) stated: “Those who polish cinnabar in workshops tie loose masks made of bladder-skin over their faces to prevent inhalation of dust as they breathe; the dust is a very serious health hazard.” (Naturalis Historia XXXIII; 122).

Plutarch (c.45-125 AD) recommended that only criminals be used in mercury mines. He said that it is unjust to expose non-criminals to the poisons.

Paracelsus (1567): “so much harm arises from mercurius”; “there arises …. many such diseases such that they cannot all be mentioned.”; “mania, frenzy, … lethargy, and the like….”; “if the brain is affected, the thoughts wax and wane”. (Von der Bergsucht und anderen Bergkrankheiten, 1533-4, pub 1567).

Bernadino Ramazzini (1633-1714): “Very few [mercury workers] reached old age, and it was also said that even if they did not die young, their health was so terribly undermined that they prayed for death”.

John Hill (1751): Hatters breathing mercury vapour developed “mental disability”.

1800s: Mad Hatter syndrome: characterised by erethism (pathological shyness, timidity and social phobia), mental deterioration, personality changes, tremors.

1860: Transactions of the Medical Society in New Jersey: clinical description of “mercurialism” in hatters. Symptoms such as trembling, loss of coordination, slurred speech, loosening of teeth, memory loss, depression, irritability and anxiety.

BMJ 287:1961 (1983) Did the Mad Hatter have mercury poisoning? HA Waldron:

“The principal features of erethism were excessive timidity, diffidence, increasing shyness, loss of self confidence, anxiety, and a desire to remain unobserved and unobtrusive. The victim also had a pathological fear of ridicule and often reacted with an explosive loss of temper when criticised.”

Dental Amalgam specifically:

1844 Amos Wescott; Am J Dent Sci: The bad effects of mercury precluded its use in all cases.

1855 Amalgam. Am J Dent Sci: Many dentists considered it “producing grave and lasting disturbances of health”.

1874 Payne; Chicago Med J.: Dental profession poisoning “thousands of people all over the world”.

1878 Canada Lancet: “introduction of so virulent a poison ….. is radically wrong and should not be ventured upon…..”.

1899 Tuthill: “makes a mental wreck of its victim”.

1926 Alfred Stock: “recommended removal of amalgam fillings if “neurasthenic conditions develop”.

1974 J Am Dent Soc 98(4),904: “symptoms include …. self-consciousness, embarrassment without justification, disproportionate anxiety, indecision, poor concentration, depression, irrational resentment of criticism, and irritability.”

Etc. etc. etc.

28 studies showing benefits of amalgam removal

(a) Numerous published scientific studies have supported the notion that dental amalgams have serious adverse effects on those having them. Not least are 28 studies of amalgam removal, featuring 6622 patients. There are 25 of these studies cited and discussed in a publicly online meta-review by Mats Hanson (“Effects of amalgam removal on health; 25 studies of 5821 patients”), and three later studies are Prochazkova Sterzl Kucerova 2004; Sterzl Prochazkova Hrda 2006; Wojcik Godfrey Haley 2006.

(b) And these are the studies of the most powerful kind, namely direct evidence, and positive evidence. Such simple direct evidence trumps any amount of opposing speculative inferences via intermediary concepts such as urine or plasma levels (which are demonstrably misleading anyway) . And given 28 positive studies, a lot more than 28 negative studies would be required to cancel them out (because an instance of failing to find evidence is a lot less significant than an instance of succeeding in finding it). And yet there is no more than a handful of (methodogically dubious) negative studies, which come nowhere near countering them.

(c) And these findings cannot be dismissed as merely placebo effects. As Mats Hanson’s review indicates, “Often the removal of amalgam is a final, unpleasant and expensive measure after many years of ill health where conventional medical therapies have not improved the situation”, and patients regularly experienced long-term resolutions of problems which had affected them for many years previously.

(d) Nor can the findings be dismissed due to some of them lacking controls, or being confounded by nutritional or chelation treatments. For such objections to have any merit we would have to accept the fantastic thesis that chelation or nutrition alone can suffice to produce miraculous prompt and sustained resolutions of longstanding intractable serious problems.

In the context of the already-existing studies indicated in the preceding paragraph, the paper by Kingman, A. et al., Amalgam exposure and neurological function, Neurotoxicology, Vol. 26, pp. 241-255, 2005, begins with the words: “Concerns regarding the safety of silver–mercury amalgam fillings continue to be raised in the absence of any direct evidence of harm.”. It follows that the authors of that Kingman et al. paper must be either very incompetent or very dishonest.

Reports citing only studies opining in favour of amalgam while not mentioning those that contraindicate.

(a) The 2008 SCENIHR report, even though 72 pages long, failed to mention any of the above-cited 28 references. Commentaries by various authors (see appendix) pointed out extensive additional serious omissions. And yet the SCENIHR did cite the Kingman paper which was shown in paragraph 6 above to be unfit for inclusion, and did cite numerous patently unworthy papers relating to blood and urine levels which are well-known to be seriously misleading because what matters is the level of mercury in brain etc cells rather than in blood or urine.

(b) The 1997 COT statement merely refers to an EC report which in turn reviews five other reviews from pre-1994. Whatever the merits of that opaque audit trail, it anyway likewise failed to relate to any of those removal studies (about half of which were before its date), and then ended with a citation of:

Larsson KS (1995). The dissemination of false data through inadequate citation. J Internal Med, 238:445-450.

And the very next year the COT issued a statement on vitamin B6, which was described in the Lancet as “one of the worst examples of pseudoscience I have ever encountered”. COT’s recommendation of a 10mg limit was abandoned in the face of an unprecedented level of public protest against their charlatanism pretending to be expertise.

(c) The FDA 2002 report [Proposed Rulexx] likewise failed to mention those removal studies. It dismissed as “methodologically flawed” all of the many uncited studies that contradicted its premises. You can see in our appendix a list of 236 studies which the FDA 2002 thus dismissed unmentioned and of which a commentator states: “Compare the quality of the studies and journals that the FDA includes in their following References section with those "methodologically flawed" studies that fooled so many impartial reviewers and editors of some of the finest peer reviewed, scientific and medical journals in the world.” http://www.iaomt.org/testfoundation/fdaamalgam.htm. It would logically be expected that flawed studies would be no more frequent among those suggesting harm rather than safety, and yet the FDA 2002 somehow managed to find a spectacularly improbable preponderance of flawed studies among those pointing towards harm rather than safety. The extreme improbability of this constitutes proof, far beyond reasonable doubt, of extreme bias on the part of these FDA 2002 authors.

(d) The 53-page Clarkson TW, Magos L.(2006) Crit. Rev. Toxicol. 36:609-662 omitted mention of the large number of contrary studies, while endorsing numerous patently unsound or misleading ones (such as relating to blood and urine levels), as documented by Mutter J, Naumann J, Guethlin C (2006) Crit. Rev. Toxicol. 37:537-549 (herewith appended).

(e) The FDA 2002/2009 cited that Clarkson/Magos 2006 sloppy review but failed to mention the Mutter et al damning commentary on it that was published in that very same journal. How much more charlatanic is it possible to get?

(f) A prominent article by Ben Goldacre (recipient of numerous awards as supposedly a heroic debunker of pseudoscience) began with the words: “You might remember the scare stories about mercury fillings from the past two decades: they come around every few years…” (Guardian 6 May 2006 http://www.badscience.net/2006/05/and-now-the-news/). His article mentioned only studies supporting amalgam. Then Goldacre later published an article condemning exactly those who “selectively reference only research which supports their case, rather than the totality of the evidence.” (Guardian 8 August 2009 http://www.badscience.net/2009/08/how-myths-are-made/). A comment was posted below that article, pointing out how Goldacre himself had failed to cite the amalgam removal studies in his 2006 article. You can see that Goldacre steadfastly ignored this challenge to his falsehood, instead further engaging in chat with his acolytes about philosophers of science.

Those documents are also examples of criticisms also being ignored and blanked out: None of them (or their issuing agencies or endorsers) acknowledge the existence or validity of the severe, damning criticisms that were made of them in commentaries.

Documents citing only reports that support amalgam while omitting any mention of those that contraindicate it (e.g., Swedish Government Forskningsrådsnämnden report 1998, Maths Berlin, Dental Materials Commission 2002; Amalgam: Eine Risikobewertung unter Berücksichtigung der neuen Literatur bis 2005. J. Mutter, J. Naumann, H. Walach, F. Daschner. Gesundheitswesen 2005; 67(3): 204-216 DOI: 10.1055/s-2005-857962.; Berlin M. Mercury in dental-filling materials – an updated risk analysis in environmental medical terms. An overview of scientific literature published in 1997-2002 and current knowledge. 2003.):

(g) a letter from Andy Burnham (30 Nov 2009) mentioning only SCENIHR 2008, FDA 2002, WHO 1998, EC 1998, and COT 1997;

(h) a reply to a Freedom of Information request from Tim Hayward filed on 26 August 2009, essentially identical to (a) above:
(http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/mercury_filling_safety).

(i) a 2008 letter of reply from the Chief Denial Officer which cited only the SCENIHR report;

And again, these letters give no indication that these “expert” reports have been subject to severe damning unrebutted criticisms.

Evasive mis-management of patients with possible mercury poisoning.

(j) Other patients: Mats Hanson’s commentary on the SCENIHR report states: “Patients in both Norway and Sweden have repeatedly complained to the health authorities about the way they have been (badly) treated and their reports on health changes after amalgam removal have been ignored.”

(k) This patient’s own experience of six years of evasions by NHS staff:

2004 Requested Dental Hospital to show evidence of safety; defective response; then they failed to answer my rebuttal; they abruptly shooed me away from their other victims of uninformed consent.

Dental Hospital said I should see a doctor instead.

2006 GP made referral to the QE Hospital for amalgam removal “as a precaution”.

QE Hospital said they could not do the removals.

Referral switched to Dental Hospital.

Dental Hospital Consultant Stephen Chambers said a student would do the removals.

Six months later, on attending the student appointment, was told that Dental Hospital could not do the removals after all.
Stephen Chambers sent a secret letter containing three nastily-calculated libels.

2008 (After two relocations), new GP asserted that there was no basis for amalgam referral, supposedly on grounds of secret letter from Dental Hospital. In reality that libellous letter from Chambers contained not the slightest evidence about mercury except for accidentally confirming my severe memory difficulty which is actually a most pathognomic symptom of amalgam poisoning.

Harley Street dentist el-Essawy found I had world record 460mcg/m³ oral mercury vapour (unprovoked) and recommended melisa test.

2009 Melisa test positive 3/3 mercury, 3/3 nickel, 3/3 silver.

New GP said I should see a dentist instead.

NHS Dentist said I should see a doctor instead.

Dr said I should instead get the dentist to send a request.

After a lot of chasing, eventually the request was received by GP’s fax.

Dr wrote back saying he didn’t have anything to say about it.

I raised again with Dentist in a first letter, detailing three violations of directions for use of amalgam.

Dentist replied that not her responsibility.

I sent letter 2 in reply.

Dentist again not her responsibility.

I sent letter 3 in reply.

Dentist again dismissed the matter, citing defunct Healthcare Commission.

Dentist’s phone never answered. Eventually I travelled there myself and the Practice Manager told me they were not contracted to do or refer for Advanced Mandatory and so approval from Contracts Manager SC was required.

SC said the dentist must do the referral instead.

Dentist practice manager again said SC must do it (as not normally NHS funded).

SC said I should see a doctor

I asked Dr V for a referral to a toxicologist; she said she would have to confer with Dr G.

On enquiring two weeks later I was told a (‘urgent’) referral was being sent.

Five weeks later the referral notice is still awaited.

(ad infinitum, thanks for all the “help” great NHS).

At no time in all this five year farce have any of these NHS personnel attempted to make any diagnosis or conduct any tests.

[and since become even more ridiculous]

http://www.dentistry.co.uk/news/news_detail.php?id=1732 "England's Chief Dental Officer has dismissed a TV documentary highlighting the dangers involving mercury amalgam as ‘scare mongering' and ‘sensationalist'.” But see for yourself his parade of falsehoods (on ITV in 2009) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMI_em8UPo4 from 5m30s):

“I’m not sure that’s true” (that mercury vapour is continually released); “not measureably”; and “I’m not sure that’s actually true” (that amalgam is the main source of mercury in the body**).

· Svare, C.W., Peterson, L.C., Reinihardt, J.W., et al. (1981): The effect of dental amalgams on mercury levels in expired air. J Dent Res 60:1668-1671.
· Patterson, J.E., Weissberg, B.G., Dennison, PJ. (1985): Mercury in human breath from dental amalgams. Bull Environ Contam Topical 34:459-468.
· Vimy, M.J., Lorscheider, F.L. (1985): Serial measurements of intra oral air mercury: estimation of daily dose from dental amalgam. J Dent Res 64:1072-1075.
· Berglund, A., Pohl, L., Olsson, S., Bergman M. (1988): Determination of the rate of release of intra-oral mercury vapor from amalgam. J Dent Res 67: 1235-1242.
· Vimy, MJ., Lorscheider, FL. (1985): Intraoral air mercury released from dental amalgam. J Dent Res 64:1069-1071.
· Clarkson, T.W., Friberg, L., Hursh, J.B., Nylander, M. (1988): The prediction of intake of mercury vapor from amalgams. In: Clarkson, T.W., Fribert, L., Nordberg, G.F., Sager, P.R. editors. Biological Monitoring of Toxic Metals, New York. Plenum Press: 247-260.
· Vimy, M.J., Lorscheider, F.L. (1990): Dental amalgam mercury daily dose estimated from intra oral vapor measurements: a predictor of mercury accumulation in human tissues. J Trace Elem Exp Med 3:111-123.
· Mackert, J.R., Jr. (1987): Factors affecting estimation of dental amalgam mercury exposure from measurements of mercury vapor levels in intra oral and expired air. J Dent Res 66:1775-1780.
· Olsson,, S., Berglund, A., Pohl, L., Bergman, M. (1989): Model of mercury vapor transport from amalgam restorations in the oral cavity. J Dent Res 68:50~508.
· Olsson, S., Bergman, M. (1987): Intraoral air and calculated inspired dose of mercury Letter]. J Dent Res 66:1288-1289.

**Criteria 118 WHO 1991 states that amalgam is up to 6x the other sources combined; Aposhian HV, Environ Health Perspect 1998 – 2/3 comes from amalgam.
Richardson GM. Assessment of mercury exposure and risks from dental amalgam. Health Canada 1995. Tolerable Daily Intake is exceeded in adults with 4 or more amalgams.

Poison in the Mouth (BBC TV Panorama 1994) (FIFTEEN years before the Chief Denial Officer was parading his utter uselessness above):

“MANGOLD (BBC): …. It's easy to demonstrate how the mercury vapor escapes from their small fillings. We invited an expert to bring a mercury vapor tester to check. The air around the fillings is measured. Even without stimulation some mercury vapor is escaping from the filling. Then the filling is rubbed to simulate chewing, brushing or grinding. This time there is no doubt that mercury vapor has begun to leak copiously. This is the actual reading as the needle goes off the scale.”
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2288515475015225824#
Transcript at http://www.fluoridealert.org/BBC-mercury.htm

The compilation of facts above points to an outstanding record of untruthful misrepresentation and hypocrisy among those purporting to speak as experts in support of the supposed safety of amalgam. (And more could have been included.)

Even the most key advisors and decisionmakers on public health policy have participated in this untruthful misrepresentation. So it calls into question whether any testimony or documentation of purported experts in defence of amalgam is worthy to be believed.

Enhanced version of my Alzheimers/dementia theory

2010-09-30T19:05:00.000-07:00

I am grinding more and more to a halt under the burden of still-untreated (and supposedly non-existent) dental mercury poisoning and I'm not sure how much more I will get done. Surely not ever get round to publishing my theories of schizophrenia, "psychoticism", psychosis (which Eysenck's 'psychoticism' is not the essence of!), extraversion, neuroticism, neuroses, IQ, genius, dream sleep, etc.

The last thing I was working on was in 2003 an enhancement of my paper "Does longer-term memory never become overloaded, and would such overload manifest as Alzheimer's and other dementia?" (published in 2000, see PubMed).

I will try to put here a link to a "reprint/preprint" of my unfinished draft update, which is basically a revision of my 2000 paper which I was working on revising to incorporate the enhanced ideas, and left off in 2003 when I got too tired to continue. I think the later pages remained un-updated. But first I'll just add some separate explanation about the enhancement.

Basically, the enhancement is an additional level (or process) of overload, arguably the most important. It is overload in intra-cellular information. It explains why tau becomes hyperphosphorylated and tangled.

It has been noted that this tau AD pathology starts many years earlier with the most complex neurons, namely the pyramidals in the hippocampus called the CA1 or dentate granules or something I forget which.

Neurons have a very complex shape, loads of branches of axons and dendrites and thousands of synapses connecting them to other neurons. These shapes are not just random, rather they are the very embodiment of our ideas, memories and such like information. There has to be some means within each cell of organising and remembering that correct, and changing, shape. This is all the more so given that any two neurons never form more than one synapse together.

There must therefore be some rigorous mechanism for storing the "design" of the cell, storing it in the nuclear DNA and transporting design messages outwards along the cell's axons and dendrites.

So we are looking for some molecule that travels out from the nucleus and has means of carrying information in a code. Like the molecular code in DNA and RNA.

The tau molecule has about 34 (if I recall correctly) sites of adjustable phosphorylation. So the phosphorylation of tau could have the capacity to encode about 17 billion different messages. That's a lot! It does indeed travel out from the nucleus to the synapses etc.

Bear in mind that the design information of the cell has to be recorded as a sequence of changes rather than just the first or the latest design. And some of these cells experience a seriously large amount of changes as learning progresses.

And natural selection is less than perfect. That's especially the case in respect of extreme circumstances, extreme age and extreme data input. So those most complex neurons, located in the hippocampus, eventually find their tau molecules trying to register more data than natural selection has prepared them for. So their tau phosphorylation becomes "hyperphosphorylation" as is well-known. And that affects the shape of the molecule, causes the tau molecule to become curled and tangled. And thus the degeneration into AD begins. I thought of all this before 2003 but so what, no-one gives a damn least of all any of these so-called scientists who are paid so much more than my beggar's allowance. Cheers anyway!

Slightly vast problem with my Alzheimers/ dementia theory!

2010-09-30T15:59:00.000-07:00

The slightly vast problem with the memory overload theory of Alzheimers and other dementia is easily stated.

(1) The theory explained why it is impossible to cure Alzheimers (unless you can somehow bolt extra memory modules onto the patient's brain).

(2) Meanwhile all the hundreds or thousands of Alzheimer's researchers earn their living by participating in a search for a cure for Alzheimer's.

And I'm sure that even you can work out the implication of putting together items (1) and (2) above.

Meanwhile, the search for the Philosopher's Stone and the Holy Grail are probably continuing as well somewhere out there.....

Extensive (seeming) evidence of the uselessness of vaccinations?

2010-09-09T11:49:00.000-07:00

The following damning statements about vaccines may or may not be true, I haven't checked them, but nor has this comment from "bill" been replied to on that "quackometer" site which is very hostile to such anti-vaccination ideas.

http://www.quackometer.net/blog/2007/07/absence-of-evidence.html
bill on October 27, 2007 at 5:27 pm

[....]

One list HERE should raise questions for anyone interested in safety.

“In 1871-2, England, with 98% of the population aged between 2 and 50 vaccinated against smallpox, it experienced its worst ever smallpox outbreak with 45,000 deaths. During the same period in Germany, with a vaccination rate of 96%, there were over 125,000 deaths from smallpox.

In Germany, compulsory mass vaccination against diphtheria commenced in 1940 and by 1945 diphtheria cases were up from 40,000 to 250,000. (Don’t Get Stuck, by Hannah Allen)

In the USA in 1960, two virologists discovered that both polio vaccines were contaminated with the SV 40 virus which causes cancer in animals as well as changes in human cell tissue cultures. Millions of children had been injected with these vaccines. (Med Jnl of Australia 17/3/1973 p555)

In 1967, Ghana was declared measles free by the World Health Organisation after 96% of its population was vaccinated. In 1972, Ghana experienced one of its worst measles outbreaks with its highest ever mortality rate. (Dr H Albonico, MMR Vaccine Campaign in Switzerland, March 1990)

In the UK between 1970 and 1990, over 200,000 cases of whooping cough occurred in fully vaccinated children. (Community Disease Surveillance Centre, UK)

In the 1970’s a tuberculosis vaccine trial in India involving 260,000 people revealed that more cases of TB occurred in the vaccinated than the unvaccinated. (The Lancet 12/1/80 p73)

In 1977, Dr Jonas Salk who developed the first polio vaccine, testified along with other scientists, that mass inoculation against polio was the cause of most polio cases throughout the USA since 1961. (Science 4/4/77 “Abstracts”)

In 1978, a survey of 30 States in the US revealed that more than half of the children who contracted measles had been adequately vaccinated. (The People’s Doctor, Dr R Mendelsohn)

In 1979, Sweden abandoned the whooping cough vaccine due to its ineffectiveness. Out of 5,140 cases in 1978, it was found that 84% had been vaccinated three times. (BMJ 283:696-697, 1981)

The February 1981 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association found that 90% of obstetricians and 66% of pediatricians refused to take the rubella vaccine.

In the USA, the cost of a single DPT shot had risen from 11 cents in 1982 to $11.40 in 1987. The manufacturers of the vaccine were putting aside $8 per shot to cover legal costs and damages they were paying out to parents of brain damaged children and children who died after vaccination. (The Vine, Issue 7, January 1994, Nambour, Qld)

In Oman between 1988 and 1989, a polio outbreak occurred amongst thousands of fully vaccinated children. The region with the highest attack rate had the highest vaccine coverage. The region with the lowest attack rate had the lowest vaccine coverage. (The Lancet, 21/9/91)

In 1990, a UK survey involving 598 doctors revealed that over 50% of them refused to have the Hepatitis B vaccine despite belonging to the high risk group urged to be vaccinated. (British Med Jnl, 27/1/1990)

In 1990, the Journal of the American Medical Association had an article on measles which stated ” Although more than 95% of school-aged children in the US are vaccinated against measles, large measles outbreaks continue to occur in schools and most cases in this setting occur among previously vaccinated children.”(JAMA, 21/11/90)

In the USA, from July 1990 to November 1993, the US Food and Drug Administration counted a total of 54,072 adverse reactions following vaccination. The FDA admitted that this number represented only 10% of the real total, because most doctors were refusing to report vaccine injuries. In other words, adverse reactions for this period exceeded half a million. (National Vaccine Information Centre, March 2, 1994)

In the New England Journal of Medicine July 1994 issue a study found that over 80% of children under 5 years of age who had contracted whooping cough had been fully vaccinated.

The CDC states that 135 children died during the 2003-2004 flu season. 59 of these children had received their flu shots.

On November 2nd, 2000, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) announced that its members voted at their 57th annual meeting in St Louis to pass a resolution calling for an end to mandatory childhood vaccines. The resolution passed without a single “no” vote.”

It would seem that drug and vaccine makers often prefer suppression over transparency.

1992 letter: The future of environmental policies as the Green Party falters

2010-09-04T08:58:00.000-07:00

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letter-the-future-of-environmental-policies-as-the-green-party-falters-1551297.html

Monday, 14 September 1992

Sir: I agree that the Green Party is going 'to the compost heap of history'. But the reasons given in your leading article are incorrect. The Green Party does indeed have some misconceptions about how people and society can be organised, but no more so than the Labour and Conservative parties. Zero growth of population and economy are not policy options, rather they are inevitabilities and the choice is merely between arriving at zero growth by planning or by default. The latter will lead to stress, starvation, fighting over scarce resources, excessive pollution and anarchy.

More than 10 years ago I decided not to join the Ecology Party, because I anticipated that as soon as it became influential the other main parties would claim to be true green as well, and so the Green Party would never become an established force. And so it has turned out.

The failure of the Green Party reflects not so much the bankruptcy of the greens as the bankruptcy of the political system so smugly admired by the establishment of this country, founded on superficial, pretentious election campaigning, and idiotic questions on the ballot paper, presented to voters with minimal incentive to examine the issues with the thoroughness they require. We will not have competent government in Britain and the other so-called democracies until we change to selecting decision-makers in an appropriate way, such as random selection with perhaps some supplementation of relatively talented or expert persons.

Yours sincerely,

ROBIN P. CLARKE

Postscript: 30+ years on, there has been no green government anywhere on the planet. Yet the Green Party in the uk has recently been getting ecstatic about its "wonderful success" in at last getting one MP among the 650 others in parliament. Sad.

Differing reponses to dental amalgam mercury

2009-12-20T13:03:00.000-08:00

I have indicated in my bio/"CV" how the words of Tuthill 1899, "Makes a mental wreck of its victim" applied very much to myself. You will of course wonder in that case why there are not millions of people who have been made mental wrecks by dental treatment. Well, for starters, huge numbers have indeed been thus wrecked, but the system covers them up and shoos them away till they go mad and or actually die and the involvement of dentistry in their deaths never gets a word in. You can see some victims' videos on youtube. I myself have only survived so long because I learnt about measures that incidentally counteracted the toxin.

But it is still clear that many people have several amalgams and do not become a mental wreck as a result. Part of this may be down to the behaviour of the dentist. If a dentist drills or polishes your amalgam without enough suction and you then breathe in amalgam dust, that amalgam dust remains in your lungs for many months/years causing a very high intake of mercury vapor straight into the bloodstream. I suspect that that is what caused my own stark decline into disability.

Then there is a second consideration, namely individual differences. Given that antiinnatia is generally good for health, producing high IQ among other things, and given that mercury vapour is now a proven antiinnatia factor (see my coming update), then it will be generally advantageous to have only limited outputting of the mercury. One of the things that would enable ultra-high IQ (such as I myself had) would be genes reducing the removal of mercury. Such a person would then be more vulnerable to dental mercury toxicity.

A third consideration is that initially an individual has some inborn detox capacity, in terms of reduced glutathione for instance; and this enables resistance to mercury toxicity. But after a certain excess of exposure this inborn detox becomes broken down and non-functional. There's some reason to believe this happens in many autistic cases.

Professor David Nutt and the corporate corruption agenda

2009-10-31T01:02:00.000-07:00

I'm not usually very enthusiastic about professors, given that so often the word seems to be a synonym for liar.
However, in the case of the drugs advisor Professor David Nutt, his offence is the standard one of telling the truth, the one offence no decent member of the establishment is allowed to commit.

Why can't the government be honest about cannabis? That's because they always go along with the corrupt big money. For thousands of years, hemp was a most important locally-grown crop used for many purposes. But then the globalised big business of the cotton trade and tobacco trade developed. You can't grow cotton in the UK, just as you can't grow tobacco here either.

So it was the cotton trade and tobacco trade that decided to tell lies about cannabis in order to close down the localised hemp production and give themselves a monopoly.
Gordon Brown has lost confidence in Prof Nutt? I for one long ago lost confidence in the Downing Street crooks.