This is the fourth version of this bill to be introduced. The other three have all died in Congress. On the positive side, however, the numbers of sponsors and information included with these bills has increased each time it was introduced, showing the effects of the grassroots anti-mercury movement. Kudos to Rep. Diane Watson (D-CA) who continues to introduce this legislation.

I wrote two of my major law school papers on mercury and mercury litigation. If you are interested in the prior versions of the bills, they are H.R. 4163 (107th Congress, 2nd session, April 10, 2002), H.R. 1680 (108th Congress, 1st session, April 8, 2003), and H.R. 4011 (109th Congress, 1st session, October 6, 2005).

Of more interest on the litigation front is the e-mail I received this morning related to the decided case of Moms Against Mercury v. FDA Moms Against Mercury v. FDA. It looks like the FDA is caving. Five times in its response brief to the court case it admitted that it did not know if mercury amalgams were safe. With threats of continued litigation, both against the agency and also putting high-ranking FDA officials on notice that they may be held personally liable, the FDA has now agreed to write an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking for classification of amalgams. However, there is no timeline from them on this action.

If that last part makes no sense, the short explanation is that the FDA was required in 1976 to classify all medical devices based on the relative safety of the device. However, the FDA has failed to perform its duties of classifying amalgams under the 1976 Medical Device Amendments, which require proof of safety and preparation of an environmental impact statement. There is a lot more to the story, but the gist is that they are now agreeing that they will classify amalgams. It will be interesting to see how "safe" or not they will be deemed, especially since the FDA has already banned all mercury from veterinary uses after reviewing its safety.