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Amalgam in Tooth fillings: Harmless but DON’T use it?

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Amalgam in Tooth fillings: Harmless but DON’T use it?

Last week a number of media outlets reported that EU had brought in a law that outlawed the use of Dental Amalgam for fillings for children under 15 and pregnant or breast feeding women. The law is from 2017 already, but it came into effect only on 01 July.

So what is Amalgam? Amalgam is compound for tooth fillings that contains Mercury. Mercury is highly toxic but for some odd reason it is allegedly harmless when in your mouth.

The Irish Times wrote in an article “Mercury is the only liquid metal and, while safe when used in dentistry, has been associated with incidents of poisoning, as in the Bay of Minamata in Japan where, in the 1950s and 1960s, a disfiguring disease was identified to be associated with industrial-scale mercury poisoning.”

So it’s safe, but causes poisoning!? How does that make sense?

The Irish Times continued and claimed that the change was part of the Government’s adherence to the Minamata Convention, a United Nations agreement dating from 2013, which aims to protect human health and the environment by reducing, or eliminating altogether, the use of the chemical element mercury.

But it might not surprise you that the Irish Government delayed the change until the very last moment and that it only did so because of a EU law change.

Interestingly Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Germany have banned or restricted use of amalgam already in 2011. But the Irish Government thought it was appropriate to allow the use for another 7 years! SEVEN!

Now why is this change happening? After all the Health Service Executive in Ireland said that the Amalgam compound was “a safe, reliable and durable filling material, and has been used successfully for over 100 years”. So something safe and perfect will be banned? Isn’t that odd? Bans are normally reserved for dangerous things, no?

Well, interestingly if you are older than 15 or not pregnant, you can currently still get Amalgam fillings DESPITE the fact that many other countries saw the need to ban it.

So is it dangerous or not? Dentists and Health Service Executive tell us that it is safe, but how could they not do that. It would imply that they were lying all along. The ban for children and pregnant women is a clear admission that it is NOT safe.

DON’T use it and tell your dentist that you do NOT want any Amalgam fillings added!

 

Health System, Odd, , , , , , , ,

Voluntary retirement age increased to 70

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Voluntary retirement age increased to 70

A big change is afoot. On Thursday new legislation was agreed on by the Government that will allow all public servants to work until 70 if they want. Until now, public servants that were recruited before 2004 had a mandatory retirement age of 65 years of age. With our life expectancy continually going up and since active life should not be forced to end at the arbitrary age of 65, this change makes a lot of sense.

People that want to retire at 65 can still do that, but the people that want to work longer are now allowed to.

Public servants are all employees in the Civil Service (in government- and state-related roles), in Education, in the Health sector, in Justice and in Local Authorities. (The Defence Sector is also part of this group, but they have different retirement rules.)

Yes, there is a downside to that as well. Unsuitable employees could now stick around for 5 years longer. But they were probably already unsuitable before they were 65 and then it is not the fault of this upcoming law change.

Here are some more details about this change.

General, Politics

Thank you Michael D. Higgins, but it is enough!

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Thank you Michael D. Higgins, but it is enough!

You might completely disagree with me, because for some reason Miggeldy Higens, as Irish President Michael D. Higgins is also known, found a large amount of fans in the last few years, but I think he should stick to his promise from 7 years ago, when he told the voters that he will only be available for ONE 7 year period.

I was never a big fan of Higgins and it all come from one chance encounter a good few years ago when he was in a queue to go to an event I also went to. I won’t go into details, but let’s just say that he didn’t impress IN THE SLIGHTEST. Since then I encountered him at various events and he never managed to change my opinion.

7 years ago he promised that he wouldn’t be glued to the role and would leave after 7 years and while he hasn’t really done anything wrong in these 7 years, I would think that at 77 it is time for him to retire.

But when I thought about it more, I was reminded that the Queen is 92 or something like that and she has as much relevance in the day to day business of a country as Michael D Higgins. And the Pope is 81 and he is also still running his show. So maybe we should leave Higgins in Phoenix Park another 7 years? Also because we don’t really have someone other obvious candidate? You know what, the more I think about it, I don’t really care if it is him or not. But PLEASE no more of his own poems, they are awful! ;-)

One thing that still puzzles me though is how he justifies in his head what he is doing: When he was younger, he was a staunch Socialist/Marxist, now at 77 he is making EUR 250,000 per year plus about 80,000 in money to run the show. Shouldn’t this cause the biggest ideological conflict ever? Seemingly not enough to give the other 7 x EUR 250,000 a miss that he could pocket. :-O

Irish, President, ,

Mayor No. 349

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Mayor No. 349

Every year, Dublin City Councillors elect a new Mayor and last week was that day again. This would be a relevant event in many cities around the world, but not in Dublin. The mayor of Dublin has a big title (“Lord Mayor”), but absolutely no power to change anything. He will move into Mansion House for the year, will cut ribbons and open shops and has the BIG job of turning on the Christmas Lights in December.

Unless we get a directly elected mayor – and this should have happened years ago – he is just a figure head that we easily could do without. :-O Instead of a mayor, an unelected “City Manager” is running Dublin and he often even ignores what the Dublin City Council wants. “In the interest of the people” is different!!

The new mayor is the 349th one. Mad!

The name of the mayor is Nial Ring. Ring was part of disgraced Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s inner circle in Fianna Fail for many years, but when his party didn’t want to support him when he wanted to be elected as a councillor, he suddenly became a “Independent” candidate. In 2017 he lost his house in Clontarf because he didn’t pay the mortgage payments and had arrears of EUR 500,000, so maybe he is lucky that he can move into Mansion House now.

Dublin, Dublin City Council, Elections, Politics, , , , ,

“Hosepipe Ban” – Are they for real??

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
“Hosepipe Ban” – Are they for real??

When I read this, I thought it was a Waterford Whispers News story. (Waterford Whispers News is an Irish satirical news website that usually hits the nail on the head with their brilliant headlines.) The announcement that made me think it is a joke was the announcement by Irish Water on Friday that from Monday 02 July a “hosepipe ban” would be in effect in the Greater Dublin area.

At first I thought it is Irish Water nonsense, but checking into it a bit more I realised that a piece of Irish Law really mentions that the “use of water drawn through a hosepipe” can be prohibited for the use of “watering a garden, watering recreational parks or sports grounds […], irrigating or spraying crops […], or washing a mechanically propelled vehicle or a trailer”.

Water conservation makes sense if there is a shortage and due to the idiotic way public water supplies in Ireland are ONLY served from surface water in lakes and reservoirs (instead of using water from underground sources) we are currently entering a period of water shortage. BUT a “hosepipe ban” just sounds like a ridiculous piece of law.

The ban will be in place for the whole month of July and if someone is found in breach of the ban, they could be fined EUR 125.

But here comes the interesting stuff:

While the wording above is taken from the “Water Services Act 2007”, Irish Water is NOT banning all wasteful water use. Instead they reduce the ban to “watering a garden, cleaning a private motor-vehicle using a domestic hosepipe. […], filling or maintaining a domestic swimming or paddling pool (except when using hand held containers filled directly from a tap), […]” so that means if you use a domestic hosepipe you are not allowed to clean the car, but if it is a commercial hosepipe, you can go ahead without any issues. It also means that your swimming pool must not be filled via hosepipe, but if there is a tap above the swimming pool OR if you get LOTS of big containers and fill it by hand, you are all above the law.

Dublin, Environment, Irish, Odd, , ,
 
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