GENEVA, Switzerland: The second meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP2) to the Minamata Convention on Mercury was held at the International Conference Centre Geneva from 19 to 23 November. It was determined in this session that all future COP meetings will be held in Geneva. The Minamata treaty, which came into force on 16 August 2017, now has 128 signatories, and 101 countries have ratified it. As at the first COP meeting, dental amalgam continued to be a major focal point at COP2.
Say No To Mercury, an Australian non-governmental organisation, joined forces with the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology (IAOMT), whose representatives span the globe, including Brazil, Chile, Italy, the Philippines, Slovenia and South Africa. They submitted a joint paper titled Dental Amalgam–A Major Topic at COP2, which identified the following pathways: dental office wastewater, dental waste going into landfills, air discharge from dental offices, incineration of dental waste, cremation, burial, human waste, mercury vapour from breathing, and illegally sold dental mercury for artisanal and small-scale gold mining.
Harmonised custom codes were also addressed to include not only bulk mercury for dental use, but also encapsulated dental amalgam. In addition, all parties and non-parties to the convention were asked to consider implementing steps to reduce or eliminate the environmental pathways created by the use of mercury from dental amalgam, including mandatory mercury amalgam separators. This was in accordance with the Minamata Convention’s nine measures to phase down the use of dental amalgam, namely promoting the use of best environmental practices in dental facilities to reduce releases of mercury and mercury compounds to water and land.
Throughout the week, Say No To Mercury and IAOMT members met with delegates to discuss strategies for implementation of these nine measures to phase down dental amalgam use. A luncheon meeting was held with Mohammed Khashashneh (Jordan), vice president of the group of Asian and Pacific country members of COP, along with industrial engineer Ali Sabra of Lebanon, who wish to arrange a regional meeting with both parties and non-parties in cooperation with all relevant stakeholders; including ministries of health, IGO’s, dental associations, and NGO’s of the convention on mercury-free dentistry, incorporating how to properly manage dental mercury waste.
Say No To Mercury and IAOMT also held discussions with Brazil, in which environmental analyst Camila Boechat and environmental health officer Luisa Gregorio of the Ministry of Health in Brazil shared perspectives on mercury-free dentistry. They were pleased that the first conference on mercury and human health to be held under the Fiocruz ministry of health would follow COP2, in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil on 29 and 30 November. There, Dr Sandra Hacon will be presenting on the Minamata Convention, and President of the IAOMT Brazilian Chapter Dr Martha Faissol will be discussing safe removal of dental amalgam.
The Africa group was extremely vocal in its concerns on dental amalgam, and the urgency to stop its use in order to protect the health of women and children. Many of the participants were in support of following the European Union’s ban of dental amalgam for children under 15 and pregnant or breastfeeding women that came into effect on 1 July 2018.
The Latin America and Caribbean group also supported this ban. The environmental project coordinator for Honduras, Pablo Rodríguez, shared his country’s pilot project on eliminating products and processes that use mercury in the health care sector in the four largest hospitals in the country. They have eradicated the use of medical devices that use mercury and the use of dental amalgam in these hospitals. He said that this project was started in 2014 and is gaining momentum and has now become the model for his country’s transition out of mercury use in the health care sector.
Representing VOCO dental materials, Peter Hoffmann shared with participants solutions for non-mercury dental restorations. It is extremely important, in particular for developing countries and countries in transition, to learn to use the atraumatic restorative treatment (ART) technique. ART was developed in Tanzania, more than 30 years ago as an alternative to conventional dental treatments.
A concerted commitment to end the use of dental amalgam was evident during COP2. Delegates throughout the week agreed that this use of mercury must end.
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