ARE YOUR TEETH TOXIC?

MOST PEOPLE TAKE THE SILVER FILLings in their mouth for granted. As long as their dental work doesn't crack or fall out, they are happy to leave well enough alone. But over the past couple of decades, it has become popular among some followers of alternative medicine to have the old fillings removed--a process that is not only expensive but also often painful. The theory is that the fillings slowly poison the body by leaching out mercury that was mixed with silver to make the amalgam. Hundreds of dentists in the U.S. offer amalgam extractions as a profitable adjunct to their regular practice. In their view, the old fillings, which can be up to 50% mercury, are responsible for a host of modern ills including Alzheimer's disease, chronic fatigue and multiple sclerosis.

No one has preached against the evils of silver amalgam more successfully than a Colorado Springs dentist named Hal Huggins. A prolific writer of antiamalgam articles, pamphlets and books, Huggins, 58, is the maestro of mercury removal. About 2,000 Americans, many desperately ill, have visited the Huggins Diagnostic Center, where a team of five dentists pulled out fillings in two custom-made "bubble operatories" designed to minimize exposure to toxins. At its peak, in the early 1990s, the center treated 32 patients a month, subjecting them to intensive two-week therapies and charging as much as $8,500 a mouth.

Today, however, Huggins' drill is silent. He closed his clinic in September to devote his energy to writing another book, he says. But there may have been other, more pressing reasons. Three weeks ago, a civil jury found Huggins and an associate liable in a negligence suit brought by a woman who came in to have her fillings removed and ended up having five teeth extracted. Another lawsuit alleges that the Huggins Center hastened the death of an elderly couple; the wife stopped going to her oncologist for cancer treatments after going to the center. At a hearing that began last week, the Colorado attorney general's office charged that Huggins used fraud and "pseudo science" to frighten patients into undergoing treatment. If the judge finds against Huggins, he might lose his license.

Huggins got into trouble, according to state dental examiners, when, in pursuit of mercury, he went beyond the bounds of dentistry. In some cases he prescribed lithium tablets and ordered potentially dangerous injections of insulin "without clinical justification." One man, who had no amalgam fillings, was allegedly told that his lab reports showed he had "retention toxicity." Huggins denies any wrongdoing and claims that "dentistry is trying to embarrass me for getting this message out."

Many of Huggins' patients continue to swear by his treatments. Kenneth Lay, chairman of Enron Corp. in Houston, and his wife Linda had their amalgam fillings removed at the Huggins Center in 1991. Her chronic fatigue disappeared, as did an unexplained numbness he was experiencing. "I know what his critics say," comments Lay, "but I'm convinced that he does a lot of good for a lot of people."