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By Dr. Mercola

"The next generation of Europe's children are safe from toxic dental mercury," proclaims Charlie Brown, president of Consumers for Dental Choice and the umbrella World Alliance for Mercury-Free Dentistry.

Starting July 1, 2018, amalgam use is banned for children under the age of 15 and for pregnant or nursing women anywhere in the vast European Union (EU)1,2 28 countries in all, with a population totaling more than half a billion people.

"This landmark achievement still has to be officially ratified," Charlie says, "but all three European Union institutions, the [European] commission, the Council [of the European Union] and the European Parliament have reached consensus."

"The ban on amalgam for children in Europe, we promise you, will reverberate in favor of the children across the world in America North and South, in Africa, and in Asia and the Pacific," said Brown.

"The game changer that will do in amalgam is the Minamata Convention on Mercury, which requires every participating nation to act to reduce amalgam use. The Convention is expected to become legally binding in the middle of 2017."

The hard-fought victory in Europe came after six grueling years of reports, hearings before the Commission, meetings at the Parliament, events in the national capital cities and in the E.U. capital city of Brussels and submission of testimony to a seemingly unending number of players.

Civil society the public mobilized at a level rarely seen on an issue so intertwined between environment and health concerns.

In an internet vote called by the European Commission, 88 percent of the public voted for a phase-out of amalgam as opposed to only 12 percent to keep amalgam and voter turnout was double that of any other Minamata issue.

European-wide nonprofit groups brought their networks to the forefront, and were joined by nation-based environmental and patient rights' groups from France, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Spain and Italy.

At the outset of the campaign in 2010, every major EU institution supported amalgam. At the end, in 2016, no major EU institution did.

Brown pays particular homage to four Europeans who led the campaign: Elena Lymberidi-Settimo from Greece; dentist Dr. Graeme Munro-Hall from the U.K.; Marie Grosman from France; and Florian Schulze from Germany.

Mercury-containing amalgam is a primitive, pre-Civil War pollutant that has no place in modern dentistry. Compelling evidence shows that dental amalgams readily release mercury in the form of vapor every time you eat, drink or brush your teeth.

A single amalgam filling may release as much as 15 micrograms of mercury per day; 10 micrograms per day is average. To put that into perspective, eating mercury-tainted seafood can expose you to about 2.3 micrograms per day, and that alone was enough for scientists to call for a worldwide warning in 2006.

Brown, a twice-elected former attorney general for West Virginia, has committed nearly two decades of his life to protecting children and grownups around the world from the dangers of mercury amalgam.

Consumers for Dental Choice has been a Health Liberty partner with us since 2011, and this victory is a powerful demonstration of the impact you can have when you donate money to our Health Liberty partners.

We worked long and hard to identify these partners, and Consumers for Dental Choice is one of the most effective consumer protection organizations out there. Charlie has spearheaded the creation of an enormously dedicated and effective international team operating in dozens of countries on every continent.

I would personally like to thank all of you who donated to this cause earlier this year and in years' past. Your financial support is what makes these kinds of victories possible. Yes, you CAN make a difference in other people's lives.

Next, each of the 28 European countries must submit a plan for how they are going to reduce amalgam use in the remainder of the population. The most vulnerable, the children, are now protected from the dangers of amalgam, but in all reality, amalgam should not be placed in anyone, of any age or gender.

These plans are due by July 1, 2019, and by then, Charlie suspects most countries will opt to phase out amalgam entirely.

As for the United States and Canada, now that the entire EU is taking a strong stand to protect the health of children and pregnant/nursing women, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Health Canada will be pushed to reconsider their stance.

So far, they've both chosen to protect amalgam producers and the profits of pro-mercury dentists.

However, while the EU situation will turn up the heat on these agencies, Charlie urges all consumers everywhere to refuse to do business with any dentists who still use mercury amalgam in their practices, because consumer pressure is the fastest way to eliminate the practice.

In related good news, on December 15, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a rule restricting dentists' mercury discharges.

After more than a decade of debating the issue and an additional five years of delays, the agency finally finalized requirements for dentists (placing or removing amalgam) to install amalgam separators to prevent mercury from being flushed down the drain, entering municipal waste water treatment facilities and being haphazardly released into the environment.

Dental offices are "the largest source of mercury in municipal wastewater, the largest consumer use and also the largest reservoir of mercury in use today," said Michael Bender, director of the Vermont-based Mercury Policy Project and a strong supporter of the World Alliance for Mercury-free Dentistry.

He called the separators, which the EPA estimates will cost dentists about $800 per year to operate, "a practical, affordable and available technology for capturing mercury." As reported by E&E News reporter Gabriel Dunsmith:3

"EPA pegs total discharge from dentists' offices at 5.1 tons annually. The new rule will enforce the use of amalgam separators, which capture mercury before it is discharged.

The technology will eliminate dental mercury discharge, the agency said, in addition to 5.3 tons of other waste metals. In a fact sheet, EPA said its new rule is a 'common sense solution to managing mercury that would otherwise be released to air, land, and water.'"

Seeing the EU decision as a springboard, Consumers for Dental Choice and the World Alliance for Mercury-Free Dentistry have launched a campaign to ban mercury amalgam for every child everywhere.

"We target 2020 as victory year for the world's children," said Brown. "This victory for Europe's children will lead us to for the children of Asia, Africa and America North and South. Amalgam belongs only in museums that feature failed medical strategies."

As noted by Lymberidi-Settimo, Zero Mercury Campaign project coordinator with the European Environmental Bureau:4With this agreement Europe takes an important step toward returning to world leadership in implementing the Minamata Convention. These steps toward a phase-out of dental amalgam will now resonate across the world."

As previously explained by Charlie, there's been a decades' long conspiracy of silence in the dental community, and for good reason. No patient in their right mind wants amalgams in their mouth once they understand that half of it is toxic mercury, and so it was kept a secret.

There was even a gag order on dentists preventing them from informing their patients that amalgam contained mercury, and dentists who dared speak out about amalgams risked losing their license for doing so.

This is why amalgams have misleadingly been called "silver fillings" a description based on their color rather than the actual composition of the material, 50 percent of which is mercury, NOT silver. Not only do amalgams leach mercury into your system, they also increase the likelihood of your teeth cracking and requiring additional dental work later on.

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For consumers, dental patients and dental workers, there is no advantage to amalgam none whatsoever. It isn't even a modern filling technologically. One group, however, does benefit: the "drill, fill and bill" dentists who cleverly make more money per chair per day doing assembly line dentistry. It's past time for these polluters to switch to mercury-free dentistry, and it's time too for their patients to either insist on mercury-free fillings or head out the door to another dentist.

What the pro-mercury dentists are not telling patients is that dentists are making money again on the back end. Being a metal that expands and contracts, amalgam can crack teeth and are not at all (like composites and ionomers) tooth-friendly. So amalgam costs us a lot more than composite once we factor environmental costs and future tooth restoration costs, or either one of those.

Composite materials are only about 20 percent more expensive than amalgam, and on small cavities there's no difference in price. Some materials, such as ionomers, are actually less expensive than amalgam. The conspiracy of silence kept consumer knowledge at bay for a long time. Fortunately, Zogby polls shows the number of people who know amalgam is mercury has doubled in the last eight years. And, as predicted, once they know it, they don't want it.

Dental mercury fans the flames of inflammation, which is a key factor in most chronic disease. It also impairs your body's ability to detoxify. You may be particularly vulnerable to the toxic effects of mercury if your immune system is in any way compromised, or if you are exposed to other toxins, in which case mercury has a tendency to become even more toxic.

General symptoms of mercury poisoning can easily be overlooked or misdiagnosed. If you have any of the following symptoms or a combination, you might want to have yourself screened for heavy metal toxicity:

Impairment of vision, hearing or speech, including light sensitivity

Lack of motor coordination

Muscle twitching and/or tremors

Weakness

Headaches

Itching or burning

Skin discoloration (red nose, cheeks or lips)

Profuse sweating

Elevated heart rate

High blood pressure

Mood swings, nervousness, anxiety, or irritability

Insomnia

For those of you who have mercury fillings, I recommend having them very carefully removed by a competent biological dentist who follows professional protocols for amalgam removal. It's VERY important to have it done correctly. When amalgams are removed, a large amount of mercury is released, and if the proper precautions aren't taken, your body can absorb a massive dose of mercury that can lead to acute kidney problems.

I experienced this myself more than 20 years ago when I had my amalgams removed by a non-biological dentist. Biological dentists, on the other hand, are well aware of these dangers. Some of the steps that need to be taken to keep you and your dentist safe during amalgam removal include:

Providing you with an alternative air source and instructing you not to breathe through your mouth

Putting a rubber dam in your mouth so you don't swallow or inhale any toxins, and using a high-volume evacuator near the tooth at all times to evacuate the mercury vapor

Using a cold-water spray to minimize mercury vapors

Washing your mouth out immediately after the fillings have been removed (the dentist should also change gloves after the removal)

Immediately cleaning your protective wear and face once the fillings are removed

Using room air purifiers

Disturbingly, many insurance policies still refuse to pay for composite fillings. Others that do cover composite fillings will only pay up to the cost of an amalgam, leaving you to pay the difference. As a result, people who have dental insurance are actually more likely to get amalgam than those paying out of pocket.5

When insurance companies refuse to fully pay for mercury-free composite fillings for all teeth, they harm more than your pocketbook. They harm:

Today, about 50 percent of American dentists offer mercury-free dentistry, up from 3 percent 20 years ago. To accelerate change in the U.S., Consumers for Dental Choice is urging all American consumers to demand mercury-free dentistry both from your dentist and from your insurance company. If they refuse, switch dentists; switch insurance.

At present, many insurance companies, including Delta Dental, Aetna, Equitable and Humana typically will pay only for amalgam in your molars, even though composite, not amalgam, has become the standard and mainstream filling material in North America. And, since mercury-free dentists again, about half of all dentists in the U.S. will not give you an amalgam filling anywhere in your mouth, the insurance company profits handsomely since you then have to pay the bill out-of-pocket even though you're insured! As previously noted by Brown:

"They sell an artificially low-price policy to get you in. That's a bait and switch. It's time to hold all of them accountable Challenge your insurance company; demand your claim be paid, and work with your mercury-free dentist to do that. We have the paperwork if you push the 'Demand Your Choice' button We can change this from the grassroots up. We're not going to wait on the FDA We're going to simply change the market."

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Originally posted here:
European Union's Major Institutions Agree to ... - Mercola.com

The other survey, from the European Commission's Eurobarometer, also found an upswing in the share of European citizens who view the EU positively and have trust in it. Again, the upswing occurred in virtually every country.

What's going on? How did the EU turn its reputation around?

To some extent, Europeans may simply be realizing that the grass isn't actually greener on the other side the other side being, in this case, life outside the European Union.

Britain's upcoming exit has led to political chaos and economic uncertainty, not to mention sagging consumer confidence and departing jobs. Tens of thousands of jobs may leave London's financial sector alone.

The same Pew survey found that majorities of nearly every country say Brexit will be bad for both the EU and Britain. Even a plurality of Brits believe Brexit will end badly for them. (Greece, which was threatening to "Grexit" the euro zone before departure portmanteaus were cool, is the only surveyed country in which a plurality believes Britain will be better off.)

Perhaps other EU members have watched Britain's isolationist dysfunction and started to better appreciate the European project, even with its many flaws.

Not just coincidentally, in no country that Pew surveyed did a majority of respondents say they want to leave the European Union. This finding jibes with other recent polls.

Nonetheless, even though they don't want to leave, in nearly all of the countries at least half of respondents still want to hold a referendum to vote on whether to leave.

This may seem peculiar, given that Britain got such an unwelcome surprise when it held its own referendum. But this desire to hold a vote may reflect frustration with the lack of a say in what happens in Strasbourg (and Brussels, Luxembourg and Frankfurt, where other major EU business gets done). A referendum could be viewed as a way to gain more leverage over EU officials, even if the vote is really a bluff.

"People think that voting will empower them," says Luigi Zingales, a University of Chicago professor who has studied economic and public opinion trends in the EU. "Most Europeans are happy with the idea of some form of European integration and the common market. They just want more voice in the process."

Zingales also argues that a force bigger than Brexit may be more important in reviving the EU's reputation: the fact that finally, a decade after the global financial crisis struck, so many European economies are actually improving.

Zingales notes that in the Pew data, only his home country of Italy hasn't started feeling more warmly toward the EU. Italy also happens to be the only surveyed country whose citizens are more pessimistic about their economy today than they were a year ago.

"When things go poorly, you blame everybody: your government, the EU government, probably also the United Nations," he says. "When things go well, maybe you're now sort of OK with everything."

Read more:
Catherine Rampell: The newly popular European Union - Salt Lake Tribune

GETTY

Brexit and the rise of populist parties in national elections were signs the EU is no longer the power force it once was, Mr Dodik said.

He was speaking after it emerged a potentially explosive independence referendum will not be held in Bosnias Serb Republic next year.

He described Bosnia as a failing state on a path to further fragmentation, slammed the EU and praised Russia and China for offering the Balkans friendship without attaching political conditions.

GETTY

The very fact Britain is going out, that any elections are observed traumatically, it tells a lot about the whole story of the situation of the EU

Milorad Dodik

He told politico.eu: The European Union is fading away.

The very fact Britain is going out, that any elections are observed traumatically, it tells a lot about the whole story of the situation of the EU.

And it shows the EU image now is not the same as it was 10 years ago.

Chinas influence is much, much stronger and they are offering economic solutions without political interference.

Mr Dodik denied claims he was being manipulated by Russia to stoke tensions in the Balkans and said he had never discussed breaking his Serb Republic away from Bosnia with Vladimir Putin.

GETTY

But he said he would rather deal with the Russian leader than the EU and past US administrations.

He said: Russia havent asked anything from me, to do anything impossible.

But when I go to Brussels, when I went to Washington previously, pressure was put on me and on many other politicians from here as well. So whats natural?

Is it natural that you go somewhere where you are welcome, or to go somewhere where the pressure is put on you?

GETTY

There are growing fears of new conflict in Bosnia and across the Balkans as ethnic groups attempt to redraw national borders.

Western officials warned Serb Republic leaders that breaking away would be illegal and not recognised by the international community.

The Serb Republic is one of Bosnias two autonomous regions, known as entities, established under the Dayton peace agreement that ended the 1992-1995 Bosnian war which killed 100,000 people.

Read more from the original source:
'EU is fading away' Bosnian Serb leader uses Brexit to pour scorn on Brussels bigwigs - Express.co.uk

WASHINGTON, June 29, 2017 NATO will continue to support Afghanistan through thick and thin, the alliances secretary general said in Brussels today.

Jens Stoltenberg told reporters at the conclusion of the Defense Ministerial that the alliance will continue its support to Afghanistan through 2017 and beyond, and that more troops will be sent to the nation for the Resolute Support Mission.

The effort in Afghanistan is international with 39 nations working together to make the nation more secure, Stoltenberg said. Over the years, we have achieved hard-won gains in Afghanistan and many of our women and men have paid the ultimate price, he said. We will always honor their service and sacrifice.

It is important to not lose sight of what has been accomplished in the nation, he said.

Afghan Forces Demonstrate Bravery, Resilience

Today, Afghan security forces are fully responsible for security across the country, the secretary general said. Every day they demonstrate bravery and resilience, leading the fight to defeat terrorists and protect their people.

He reminded reporters that NATO once had a large-scale combat force in the country and now has around 13,000. That number, however, is too low, he added, and the alliance will send a few thousand more troops for the Resolute Support Mission.

At a force generation conference earlier this month, 15 nations pledged additional contributions to Resolute Support, he said. We also got some more announcements and pledges during the meeting today.

This builds on the commitment to continue to fund the Afghan security forces through 2020. But NATO alone cannot bring lasting security to Afghanistan, Stoltenberg said. We count on our Afghan partners to make good on their commitments, including: key reforms on good governance and the rule of law, fighting corruption and protecting the rights of women and girls.

Earlier today, the secretary general discussed burden-sharing. At both the Wales and Warsaw NATO summits, the allies agreed to spend 2 percent of gross domestic product on security. While it takes some time to reverse a budget trend, the alliance is seeing some results.

Im glad to say that we expect this will be the third consecutive year of accelerating defense spending increases across European allies and Canada, with a 4.3 percent real increase in defense spending, he said.

This means European allies and Canada spent almost $46 billion more on defense.

This is a significant increase which means that we are moving in the right direction when it comes to burden-sharing and defense spending, Stoltenberg said.

More here:
NATO Pledges Continued Support for Afghanistan Mission - Department of Defense

Where is the United States war in Afghanistan going? Recently, the Trump administration gave Secretary of Defense James Mattis the authority to set troop levels there; so far, rumors suggest that 4,000 more American troops may soon be on their way to Afghanistan. However, this may not be enough; occupying and administering Afghanistan is a herculean task that few empires have ever had success with. The Taliban continue to gain in strength, while ISIS is expanding throughout the country. The Taliban, ISIS, various warlords, and the Afghan government all continue to fight each other.

Writing in the Atlantic, Peter Beinart described the current U.S.-led war there as hopeless: the Taliban are unlikely to cut a deal because time is on their side, and they merely have to wait it out until the United States decides to leave. The United States has been involved in Afghanistan for almost 16 years, making it the longest conflict in its history (with the possible exception of Vietnam, depending on how one interprets the chronology of that conflict). Despite spending more on Afghanistan than on rebuilding Europe after World War II, little progress has been made. It would not be surprising if the Taliban controlled all of Afghanistan within a decade.

Afghanistan is a notoriously difficult country to govern. Empire after empire, nation after nation have failed to pacify what is today the modern territory of Afghanistan, giving the region the nickname Graveyard of Empires, even if sometimes those empires won some initial battles and made inroads into the region. If the United States and its allies decide to leave Afghanistan, they would only the latest in a long series of nations to do so. As the British learned in their 1839-1842 war in Afghanistan, it is often easier to do business with a local ruler with popular support than to support a leader backed by foreign powers; the costs of propping up such a leader eventually add up. The closest most historical empires have come to controlling Afghanistan was by adopting a light-handed approach, as the Mughals did. They managed to loosely control the area by paying off various tribes, or granting them autonomy. Attempts at anything resembling centralized control, even by native Afghan governments, have largely failed.

Afghanistan is particularly hard to conquer primarily due to the intersection of three factors. First, because Afghanistan is located on the main land route between Iran, Central Asia, and India, it has been invaded many times and settled by a plethora of tribes, many mutually hostile to each other and outsiders. Second, because of the frequency of invasion and the prevalence of tribalism in the area, its lawlessness lead to a situation where almost every village or house was built like a fortress, or qalat. Third, the physical terrain of Afghanistan makes conquest and rule extremely difficult, exacerbating its tribal tendencies. Afghanistan is dominated by some of the highest and more jagged mountains in the world. These include the Hindu Kush, which dominates the country and run through the center and south of the country, as well as the Pamir mountains in the east. The Pamir Knot where the Hindu Kush, Pamir, Tian Shan, Kunlun, and Himalayas all meet is situated in Badakhshan in northeast Afghanistan.

A survey of Afghanistans history demonstrates how difficult it is to occupy and govern the country. We first get a clear glimpse into Afghanistans history around 500 BCE, when it formed the eastern part of the Achaemenid Persian empire. Parts of Afghanistan were previously part of the ancient Indian kingdom of Gandhara, a region in what is now northwest Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan. Presumably, much of southern and eastern Afghanistan was already inhabited by the ancestors of todays Pashtun (also known as Afghans historically); their Pashto language is an ancient eastern Iranian language closely related to the even more ancient Avestan, the original language of the Zoroastrian scriptures. Afghanistan was relatively lightly populated at this time, as Alexander the Great is reported to have swept through the area with little resistance. Following this, the Maurya Empire from India controlled most of Afghanistan, although a Greek successor kingdom arose in Balkh (Bactria) in northern Afghanistan. Buddhism and Hinduism spread throughout the region during this period. It was only after the collapse of the Maurya Empire and several invasions from Central Asia that the mountains of Afghanistan began to fill up, and acquire its reputation of being the home of many warlike peoples defending their individual turfs. Many of the invaders assimilated into the tribal structure of the Pashtuns, adapting their language.

Various tribes founded empires within the Afghanistan region before breaking up into mini-statelets. These included the Greco-Bactrians, the Indo-Parthians, the Saka (Scythians), the great Buddha-building Kushans, the Kidarites, and the Hephthalites (White Huns). By this time, the region already acquired a difficult reputation. When the Arabs arrived in the region at the dawn of the 8th century, it was a patchwork of small but tough principalities. Attempts to conquer the Zunbils of Kandahar failed spectacularly, the first major setback faced by the Arabs after their great conquests began. An expedition of 20,000 men sent against the Zunbils returned with 5,000 people. It took almost 200 years for Afghanistan to be Islamicized from west to east, a process that only neared completion when Yaqub ibn al-Layth al-Saffar, a Persian blacksmith born in Zaranj, in Afghanistan on the border with Iran conquered Kabul. Even then, the Hindu Shahi dynasty held out for another hundred years in the easternmost parts of todays Afghanistan until conquered by Mahmud of Ghazni (also in Afghanistan) around the turn of the millennium.

When the Mongols arrived in Afghanistan, they faced so much resistance in the Bamiyan valley, which they besieged in 1221, that the grandson of Genghis Khan was killed. In fury, the Mongols killed most of the valleys original inhabitants: most of the modern Hazara who live there are descended from a Mongol garrison, some of whose men took Tajik wives. Fragmentation ensued again after the weakening of the Mongol Empire.

ahr-ud-Dn Muammad Babur, the first Mughal emperor, managed to get himself a kingdom in Kabul for two decades before conquering India. Most of the Hindu Kush region would remain under loosely Mughal control until 1738 when it was conquered by Nader Shah and inherited a decade later by Ahmad Shah Durrani, who founded modern Afghanistan after Nader Shahs death. Mughal rule over Afghanistan was a combination of control over a few urban centers, and benign neglect coupled with paying off tribes in the region, a formula later replicated by the British. However, Mughal rule was always precarious, as they were faced with constant tribal revolts. An especially serious one from 1672-1677 led by the poet Khushal Khan Khattak was eventually defeated by the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, but Mughal authority never extended beyond main roads again.

The Mughal Empire extended as far west as Ghazni and Bamiyan in central Afghanistan; after fighting with the Persian Safavids for Kandahar for decades, they lost it permanently during the reign of Shah Jahan. The Safavids also had to deal with unruly Afghan tribes. Eventually a revolt against the Safavids broke out in Kandahar in 1709 due to Persian attempts to control Pashtun tribes and convert them to Shia Islam. The Afghan revolt brought down the Safavid Empire; although partially checked by the rise of the warlord Nader Shah and his empire, eventually modern Afghanistan was founded in 1747 by Ahmad Shah Durrani, who picked off territory from Nader Shahs descendants in Persia, the Mughals, and the Uzbeks to his north.

Since then, as both the British and Russians have learned, that while it is possible to conquer territory in Afghanistan temporarily, and defeat Afghans militarily in open battle, it is virtually impossible to hold the region down for long, when it is filled with guerrillas, tribes, and castles that can constantly weigh down a foreign power. The people of Afghanistan have nowhere to go, and can fight their whole lives (foreigners, beware in particular of the Kandahar region), a luxury that outsiders do not have. The United States should learn from the history of Afghanistan and understand that escalating the war will have no particular impact on the outcome. Minus a permanent occupationwhich would be ineffective at best, and bloody and cost-prohibitive at worstthe only way to deal with Afghanistan is to deal with its plethora of local powers. And if this means accepting the Taliban, in exchange for a modicum of stability and a promise not to host global terrorist organizations, then so be it. The alternative is an unwinnable, never-ending war.

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Why Is Afghanistan the 'Graveyard of Empires'? - The Diplomat