We interrupt our regularly scheduled blog post to share some really exciting news that hit our inbox this morning from Charlie at Consumers for Dental Choice:
Dear Friends,
Consumers for Dental Choice has achieved the goal that seemed unfathomable when you and I started this journey years ago. In Geneva last week, at the sixth meeting since the mercury treaty was finalized (known as COP6), the nations of the world amended the Minamata Convention on Mercury to set an end date for dental amalgam. The date for the amalgam phase-out, 2034, is now international law!
This victory culminates a 15-year battle on the international front. In 2010, I showed up in Stockholm to participate in the first negotiating session of a mercury treaty, knowing nary a soul. After three years of coalition-building… outreach to government delegates… and refining our scientific arguments, our team ensured that the new Minamata Convention required the “phase down” of amalgam use in 2013. We went on to strengthen this requirement with amendments that mandated protecting children from amalgam and submitting country reports on progress toward phasing out this mercury product.
But we faced staunch opposition to actually setting a date for the amalgam phase-out.
So after COP5 twenty-four months ago, we focused our work on the naysayers, mounting high-energy campaigns to persuade each to stop opposing a phase-out. Then at COP6, we threw in the kitchen sink, bringing a powerhouse team here from five continents.
And it worked! Our #1 convert was the United States: the USA came to the mercury treaty talks vocally supporting an amalgam phase-out! As did the World Health Organization, another convert to the cause! Brazil, the giant of Latin America, too. Nonetheless, two countries threatened to block the amendment unless there was a longer phase-out timeline, so there had to be a compromise: a 2034 phase-out date for amalgam with a few exemptions.
So we insisted on and won a second amendment: all countries are encouraged to ban amalgam sooner than 2034. And that is Consumers for Dental Choice’s vision for the USA. Now stay tuned because as you’ve seen, these things do not implement themselves. That’s why Consumers for Dental Choice is gearing up to push the amalgam phase-out amendment beyond the treaty negotiating room and into the real world – starting right here at home!
Charlie
12 November 2025
Charles G. Brown
National Counsel, Consumers for Dental Choice
President, World Alliance for Mercury-Free Dentistry
Phone: 202-544-6333 www.ToxicTeeth.org
