
16 NGOs from Asia and the Pacific – including Consumers’ Association of Penang and Sahabat Alam Malaysia – recently signed a petition to the federal government of Australia to ban dental amalgam exports as of 1 April 2025. (https://www.dropbox.com/…/16-civil-society-petitioners…)
Civil society organizations in Bangladesh, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, México, Philippines, Sri Lanka, the United States, Vietnam, and Yemen, are aghast at an Australian company, the Southern Dental Industries (SDI)’s agenda to sell amalgam to “lower socio-economic markets”, and which contrary to the Minamata Convention on Mercury, seeks to “maximize” amalgam sales. SDI is the lead exporter of mercury fillings.
Dental amalgam, which is 50% mercury, poisons fish that children eat, causing brain damage to some, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. Dental amalgam in the workplace – mercury being the most vaporous of the heavy metals – also causes reproductive harm to dental workers.
The European Union has banned both the use and the export of dental amalgam, 50% mercury – it’s banned for children worldwide under the mercury treaty, is risky for all consumers, ruinous to the environment, and unnecessary in modern dentistry.
Bite magazine, Australia’s leading magazine for dental professionals, highlighted the petition on 14 January 2025. Read its article below.
https://www.bitemagazine.com.au/asian-and-pacific…/