Dentsply Sirona quietly stopped its amalgam sales, as announced last year. Now the other major U.S. amalgam manufacturer, Kerr (currently a subsidiary of Envista Holdings Corporation and previously a subsidiary of Danaher), has announced that it has “…ceased manufacturing all Alloy products, including all of our amalgam products that may contain mercury.” Kerr goes on to explain that….
“Specifically, we ceased manufacturing these products in the third quarter of 2021 and communicated this decision to our customers in November of 2021. As part of this communication, we canceled many of our customer’s outstanding orders for amalgams containing mercury and directed our customers to our other materials that do not contain mercury. We also engaged in a vigorous campaign to assist our customers in swapping their amalgam products containing mercury to materials that do not contain mercury.”
This watershed moment comes in the wake of increasing pressure to exit the amalgam business, including letters to Kerr signed by 118 environmental, consumer, and children’s groups from across America and throughout the world.
And now we’re seeing results!
So we’re keeping up the momentum by challenging the remaining amalgam manufacturers in the U.S. and other countries, like Southern Dental Industries in Australia. Together, we can make sure these mercury-mongers become increasingly isolated as environmentally-responsible companies – and their dentist customers! – walk away from toxic products.
