The OPTISMILE Podcast 123 - The Amalgam and Mercury Debate

eRadio SA · Aug 31, 2026 · 31m

Introduction

Few subjects in dentistry generate more heat and less light than the silver amalgam filling. One camp insists the fillings are entirely safe and should be left alone. The other insists that anything containing mercury should come out at the first opportunity.

Both camps are loud, and neither is right in every case. In this episode Dr Clifford Yudelman works through what the published evidence actually shows about mercury exposure from amalgam, why two dentists can look at the same filling in the same week and give a patient opposite advice, and how to tell a genuine clinical…