The layout of this document has got substantially mangled in conversion from pdf. The original pdf can be found at this link here.
5. It is usual in aClinical Negligence case to include expert opinion in respect ofdiagnosis. But the Defendants here denyall existence of Amalgam Illness, so must also deny existence of expertexperience in diagnosing it.
6. In a context ofvicious persecution of medical heretics, diagnosis of Amalgam Illness does nothave some recognised school of experience-developed skill like violin-playing,but rather entails an ad hoc judgement of how well the facts of the case accordwith the facts of the science. And itreally is not (in this case) very complicated, notwithstanding those whosecareer interests might encourage them to claim otherwise.
7. Any purportedsuch diagnostic expert opinion in this case would be not an enlighteningpredicate but rather a timewasting added issue in question.
8. This claim involves two causes of action:
(a) Negligent breach of duty of care.
(b) The release of a dangerous thing, namelypoisonous mercury vapour, causing foreseeable injurious consequences.
Negligent breach of duty of care
Duty of care
9. TheClaimant made a FOI request on 28thFebruary 2010, namely: “Who hasresponsibility for approving dental amalgam?”. To which the DH replied:
“…. dental amalgam is classified as amedical device under the European Community Medical Devices Directive 93/42/ EEC (MDD). Theenforcement of the Directive in the UK is the responsibility of the Medicinesand Healthcare products Regulatory Agency ( MHRA). In conjunction withEuropean counterparts, MHRA monitors the use and effects of dental amalgam.
In the light of the MHRA’s advice, it is the Chief Dental Officer’s view thatthat the use of dental amalgam is free from risk of systemic toxicity and thatonly a very few cases of adverse reactions occur, despite its widespread useover the past 150 years. ….“
10. The MHRA in giving that advice,and the Chief Dental Officer in expressing that view, function as regulators ofclinical practice, with a duty of clinical care towardsall those patients in respect of whom their advice and view are to be applied.
“MemberStates shall take all necessary steps to ensure that devices may beplaced on the market and put into service only if they do not compromise thesafety and health of patients ….” [Article 2]
and:
“Wherea Member State ascertains that the devices referred to in Article 4 (1) and (2)second indent, when correctly installed, maintained and used for their intendedpurpose, may compromise the health and/or safety of patients, users or, whereapplicable, other persons, it shall take all appropriate interim measures towithdraw such devices from the market or prohibit or restrict their beingplaced on the market or put into service. The Member State shall immediatelyinform the Commission of any such measures, indicating the reasons for itsdecision and, in particular, whether non-compliance with this Directive is dueto: [….] (c) shortcomings in the standards themselves.” [Article8(1)]
12. The above Articlesof the Directive thus make additionally clear that this duty of care to preventthe unsafe usage of amalgam in the UK lies within the Member State (of whichthe DH is the relevant agency).
13. And in years priorto that EC Directive, the DH likewise had that duty of care.
14. The precedingparagraphs indicate that the Defendants have had at all material times a dutyof care to carefully seek and recognise any evidence of harm of usage of dentalamalgam and to advise accordingly to prevent its unsafe usage.
Pervasive untruthfulness, misleading statements, and hencelack of credibility of the most expert defenders of amalgam
19. The Defendants, who purport to speak withexpertise when they defend dental amalgam as being supposedly safe, habituallyfail to mention the evidence which runs counter to their assertions.
(a) Pro-amalgam official reports, authored bycommittees of supposed experts, fail to mention the studies and facts that runcounter to their assertions of safety. (Particulars in Paragraph 23)
(b) Criticisms pointing this out are ignored, as ifthey did not exist. (Particulars in Para 24)
(c) The defenders then habitually cite thosegrossly-biased reports as supposedly showing that amalgam is safe, but nevercite the other official reports which conclude it is harmful (or uncertain)instead. (Particulars in Para 25)
(d) The CDO recently publicly denied knowledge ofthe even most basic easily demonstrable facts of dental mercury. (ParticularsPara 26)
(e) Whenever patients appear to possibly havedental amalgam poisoning, or themselves suggest that they might have, theDefendants take extensive evasive measures to avoid any proper investigation ofthe possibility. (Particulars in Para 27)
These habitual omissions and misrepresentations, ofwhich instances are particularised below, call into question whether thereexist any genuine expertssupporting the Defendants’ position and whether any testimony of the defenders of amalgam is worthy of belief.
Particularsof failing to mention evidence of harm.
20. Historical reasons to suspect harm from mercury vapour
“The principal features of erethism wereexcessive timidity, diffidence, increasingshyness, loss of selfconfidence, anxiety, anda desire to remain unobservedand unobtrusive. The victim alsohad a pathological fearof ridicule and often reacted with an explosive loss of temper when criticised.”
22. 28 studies showing benefits of amalgam removal
(a) Numerous published scientific studieshave supported the notion that dental amalgams have serious adverse effects onthose having them. Not least are28 studies of amalgam removal, featuring 6622 patients. There are 25 of these studies cited anddiscussed in a publicly online meta-review by Mats Hanson (“Effects of amalgamremoval on health; 25 studies of 5821 patients”), and three later studies areProchazkova Sterzl Kucerova 2004; Sterzl Prochazkova Hrda 2006; Wojcik GodfreyHaley 2006.
(c) The EC1998 report not only contains these same faults of omission and commission, butalso complacently mentions in-passing the condition of “when water spraycooling and vacuum suction are used”, while not giving any consideration of thesituation when such cooling or suction briefly (or not so briefly) fail to beapplied, and the patient consequently breathes in a lungful of the dust. In the Claimant’s own 27 years of personalexperience at the Dental Hospital, such breaches of suction were not rare, andthere was never any warning to avoid inhaling. Such dust in the lungs causes hugely-increased mercury vaporisation fromthe large surface area of the dust, hence hugely-increased vapour intake untilsuch later date at which the dust has all vaporised away. This intake can be expected to soonoverwhelm the detoxification capability and thereby lead to frank amalgamillness. And yet this very seriouslikelihood (or rather certainty) is sidestepped.
(d) The “WHOConsensus Statement on Dental Amalgam 1997” does not cite any studies butmerely asserts that amalgams are “considered safe”, “not been shown to causeany other [i.e. systemic] adverse health effects”, and “there is no scientificevidence that general symptoms are relieved by the removal of amalgam”. It also falsely claims that “It has beenused successfully for more than a century and its quality has improved over theyears.” On the contrary, the modernstandard non-gamma-2 amalgams were only invented in 1963 and are well-establishedas emitting 30-50 times more of the toxic mercury vapour, a very strange sortof “improvement”.
(e) The FDA 2002 Proposed Rule likewisemisleadingly declared “the significant human experience with amalgam for over100 years”. It failed to mention theremoval studies. It dismissed uncitedas “methodologically flawed” all of the many studies that contradicted itspremises.
(f) The 53-pageClarkson TW, Magos L. Crit. Rev. Toxicol. 36:609-662, 2006 omittedmention of the large number of contrary studies, while endorsing numerouspatently unsound or misleading ones (such as relating to blood and urinelevels), as documented by Mutter J, Naumann J, Guethlin C. Crit. Rev.Toxicol. 37:537-549, 2007.
(g) The FDA in their 2009 Final Rule citedthat seriously flawed Clarkson/Magos 2006 review but failed to mention theMutter et al damning commentary on it that was published in that very same journal.
25. Documentsciting only reports that support amalgam while omitting any mention of thevarious ones that contraindicate it.
26. The CDO denying knowledge of the most basicfacts of dental mercury.
http://www.dentistry.co.uk/news/news_detail.php?id=1732:
"England's Chief Dental Officer has dismissed a TVdocumentary highlighting the dangers involving mercury amalgam as ‘scaremongering' and ‘sensationalist'.” But you can see for yourself his supposed expertise (on ITV in2009) (http://tinyurl.com/chiefdental or www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMI_em8UPo4 from 5m30s):
“I’m not sure that’s true” (that mercury vapour is continuallyreleased);
“not measureably”; and “I’m not sure that’s actually true” (thatamalgam is the main source of mercury in the body**).
· Svare, C.W.,Peterson, L.C., Reinihardt, J.W., et al. (1981): The effect of dentalamalgams on mercury levels in expired air. J Dent Res 60:1668-1671.
· Patterson, J.E.,Weissberg, B.G., Dennison, PJ. (1985): Mercury in human breathfrom dental amalgams. Bull Environ Contam Topical 34:459-468.
· Vimy, M.J.,Lorscheider, F.L. (1985): Serial measurements of intra oral airmercury: estimation of daily dose from dental amalgam. J Dent Res64:1072-1075.
· Berglund, A., Pohl,L., Olsson, S., Bergman M. (1988): Determination of the rate ofrelease of intra-oral mercury vapor from amalgam. J Dent Res 67: 1235-1242.
· Vimy, MJ., Lorscheider, FL. (1985): Intraoral air mercuryreleased from dental amalgam. J Dent Res 64:1069-1071.
· Clarkson, TW.,Friberg, L., Hursh, JB., Nylander, M. (1988): The prediction of intakeof mercury vapor from amalgams. In: Clarkson, TW., Friberg, L., Nordberg,GF., Sager, P.R. editors. Biological Monitoring of Toxic Metals, New York.Plenum Press: 247-260.
· Vimy, M.J.,Lorscheider, F.L. (1990): Dental amalgam mercury daily dose estimatedfrom intra oral vapor measurements: a predictor of mercury accumulationin human tissues. J Trace Elem Exp Med 3:111-123.
· Mackert, J.R., Jr.(1987): Factors affecting estimation of dental amalgam mercury exposurefrom measurements of mercury vapor levels in intra oral and expired air.J Dent Res 66:1775-1780.
· Olsson,, S.,Berglund, A., Pohl, L., Bergman, M. (1989): Model of mercury vaportransport from amalgam restorations in the oral cavity. J Dent Res68:50~508.
· Olsson, S.,Bergman, M. (1987): Intraoral air and calculated inspired dose ofmercury [Letter]. J Dent Res 66:1288-1289.
**Criteria 118 WHO 1991 states that amalgam is up to6x the other sources combined; **AposhianHV, Environ Health Perspect 1998: – 2/3 comes from amalgam.
**Richardson GM. Assessment of mercury exposure and risks from dental amalgam. HealthCanada 1995. Tolerable Daily Intake is exceeded in adults with 4 or moreamalgams.
Poison in theMouth (BBC TV Panorama 1994) stated:
“MANGOLD (BBC): …. It's easy todemonstrate how the mercury vapor escapes from their small fillings. We invitedan expert to bring a mercury vapor tester to check. The air around the fillingsis measured. [….] This is the actual reading as the needle goes off the scale.”
http://tinyurl.com/amalgam1994 or “Those investigators who have studied the subject are in almostunanimous agreement that there is a poor correlation between the urinaryexcretion ofmercury and the occurrence of demonstrable evidence of poisoning.”
and a joint statement of the NationalInstitute of Dental Health and the American Dental Association stated in 1984that:
28. The compilationof facts in paragraphs 19-27 points to an outstanding record of misrepresentation among thosepurporting to speak as experts in support of the supposed safety of amalgam.
29. These “experts” NEVER ANSWER the criticisms, or evenacknowledge their existence. BECAUSETHEY HAVE NO ANSWERS.
30. Even the most key advisors anddecisionmakers on publichealth policy have participated in this misrepresentation. So it calls into question whether anytestimony or documentation of purportedexperts in defence of amalgam is worthy to be believed, and whether they haveany case to present that has merit.
Prof. Boyd Haley (University of Kentucky)
Dr. Murray Vimy (University of Calgary), WHOconsultant
Prof. Lars Friberg,the world's leading authority on mercury poisoning and was chief advisor to theWHO on mercury safety
Prof. Fritz Lorscheider (University ofCalgary)
Prof. Vasken Aposhian (University ofArizona)
39. These Defendants were responsible (as shown in Paragraphs9-27) for advice which allowed the release of a dangerous thing, namelysubstantial levels of toxic mercury vapour, in the Claimant’s mouth, therebycausing foreseeable injuries (as per Paragraphs 42-107 below).
40. In a case of release of poison, the burden of proofwas placed on the Defendants to show that the release of the poison was anunavoidable consequence of carrying out their obligations.
41. In the present case, the prolonged (over fourdecades) release of further mercury vapour into the Claimant’s body could havebeen prevented by advising changing to non-amalgam restorations in respect ofpatients starting to show signs of systemic mercury toxicity. So it was not an unavoidable consequence oftheir obligations.
Firstinstallation of the claimant’s amalgams
42. The earliest extant Dental Records show that atleast 19 of the 20 amalgams were already in place by age 24. They also state:“Says didn’t visit dentist for a few years before coming here” (which is hardlysurprising given the catastrophic mental state indicated below here) and“Doesn’t eat sweets”.
43. It is therefore highly improbable that nonewere already in place when his disabilities started at age 17. Indeed the Claimant recalls some fillingsbeing installed in his early teens.
Particulars of Injuries
44. List of ill-effects experienced
(Note: NOpsychotic/schizophrenic symptoms at any time throughout 40 years of severemental disability.)
(a) Extreme deficits of memory and concentration
By age 20 this was so severe that he could not getto the end of a sentence without forgetting its beginning, and so reading,writing and listening became nearly-impossible (and he rarely did much speakinganyway).
(b) Much fatigue, lack of energy(mental/physical) for no evident reason.
(c) Extreme indecision (“procrastination”). What most people can decide in moments maytake weeks for him to decide.
(d) Severe reaction to hair-washing and bath-ing for 30+ years from ~1973 onward. Consequent phobia of washing and obvious consequent severe socialproblems. The fact that he smeltunwashed convinced everyone that he must certainly be an insensitive fool. In 2003 he established that this wassensitivity specifically to hot water storage systems and adopted use of showerand kettles in substitute (as per correspondence with the housing co-operativeabout his problems with the hot water system).
(e) Extreme instability of circadian cycle,such that he was no longer able to get to school on time, and ultimately atbest only able to arrive in the afternoon, and in later 1970s regularly unableto get up before 4pm (in the days when banks and offices closed by 4pm). In 1980 he read a science report in TheTimes which enabled him to invent and construct an effective light-entrainmentsystem which eased this problem substantially thereafter, but still asignificant problem.
(f) Extreme shyness, extreme tendency to blushing, various phobias,including severe agoraphobia/social phobia and phobia of writing (andconsequently failed English Language O‑level twice) and of communicating ingeneral (Obviously much reduced from earlier). The Claimant would stay in his bedroom till no-one was around beforehurrying out; would crouch down to avoid being seen through the window.
(g) Blank mind, like writers’ block appliedto life in general.
(h) Prolonged crash after exertion.
(i) Inability to adapt to abrupt changes of temperature, such that on entering any public building in winter he becomesextremely overheated and sweaty however many clothes he took off. (This symptom has not reduced or beenadequately worked-around.)
(j) Several years of IBS, now managed by regular consumption ofglutamine and avoidance of gluten products (wheat etc).
(k) Constant adrenal deficiency such that he has had to takebottles of salty water with him everywhere for many years.
(l) Muscular weakness to the extent that hecould never do press-ups, pull-ups or squats (until improved in recent yearsfollowing heavily enhanced nutrition).
(m) Exciteable, restless, irritable(zinc/copper ratio keeps this down).
(n) For many years used to get delirious (non-psychotic), used toget hyperactive; both ceased after he started colloidals containinglithium.
(o) Dry skin (recently reduced by coconutoil and humidifying).
(p) Slight jerkiness of fine movements (which he noticed wasincreased by wind-less days; reduced by installing large nose-level ventilationslots).
(q) Eyebrows red with eczema, constant for last 20 years.
(r) Disappearance of outer ends of eyebrows.
(s) Female-pattern hair-loss.
(t) Low temperatures down to 35.2C (r,s,t = three hypothyroidfeatures).
(u) Easily getting confused, silly mistakes.
(v) Persistently unpleasant effect from drinking alcohol
(so lifelong non‑drinker).
(w) Periodontal disease.
(x) Food allergies.
(y) Depression (till 1978).
(z) Excessive salivation, waking up choking several nights a year.
(aa) Migraines (till 1978).
(bb) Hot flushes, extreme sweating. Etc.
(cc) Neuritic pain (like gnat bites).
(dd) Joint pains.
(ee) Clumsiness (hopeless at sports).
(ff) Biting teeth together produces ringing in ear. [now ceased]
(gg) Temporary muffling of hearing for no apparent reason.
(hh) (etc.)
All the above despite substantial spendingon healthcare efforts and entirely avoiding abuses such as drinking, drugs,junk foods or even passive smoking.
45. A report from a medical practitioner detailing the readilyobservable aspects of the Claimant’s current condition is attached (and is alittle inaccurate, e.g.: upper scalpnot anterior).
From easy excellence to total failurein formal education and career
48. The graph and data below here show he was still getting high examrankings at term 14 (age 16), following a previous record of regularly highrankings.
50. Persistent correspondence with universities trying to get admissionto undergraduate courses (and re-admission to Aston). He made his final admission attempts in 1996, 24 years after hisfirst.
Exceptionally paradoxical biography
The Claimant’s persistent, consistentlack of distinction in community groups.
60. Over the decades theClaimant has been regularly involved in a number of voluntary community orcampaigning groups and attended many meetings thereof (listed below). But his extensive archives of minutes showin every case his involvement has been characterised by marginalness, andpaucity of actual contribution, rather than any significant role as would havebeen expected of an academically excelling, initiative-taking, person.
Woodstock Residents Association. Woodstock Area Caretaker. PushBikes (Birmingham cycling campaign). Friends of the Earth. Birminghamfor People. Stop-the-War Coalition. Ladywood Housing Liaison Board. Summerfieldand Ladywood Neighbourhood Management Board. Ladywood Constituency Tenants Group.
63. School reports of the sixth form state:
Term 17: “Frequently absent.” “Frequent late arrival.” “A rather enigmaticpersonality who does not seem to be putting his heart into the work inwhich he could do so well…”.
Term 18: “Misses too many lessons.” “Misses too many lessons.” “So oftenabsent.” “Frequently late and absent without any satisfactory reason to offer.”"Chemistry practical absent.”“His knowledge of organic chemistry was farfrom complete.”
Term 19: “he has surrendered none for marking. A tragic waste of outstandingability.” “No written work of any description has been submitted thisterm.” “We all know he has some goodqualities. Why does he fail to showthem here?”. “He no longer cooperates with the school in any way …. heattends so seldom anyway.”
Term 20: “Attended for only one of the three papers. in this he scored 37/150.A shocking waste of ability.” “If regular absence continues…”. “Rarelypresent….”. “Contributes absolutely nothing to the lesson.” “He takes no partin school life and very little in lessons.” “His attitude and behaviour perplexes me.”
Term 21: “His attendance has continuedto be erratic.” “attendance has been so irregular…”. “has taken no part”. “Hisenigmatic personality….”.
64. Around the same age, the Claimant developed a sort of phobia ofwriting and talking. He recalls his perplexity at this, on one occasion indesperation telling his mother he could not write, but they were both at a losswhat to do, so he never talked about it again. This longstanding writing phobia was reflected in failing O-levelsEnglish language, English Literature, and History, and then failing EnglishLanguage a second time (despite excellent spelling and grammar). He eventually passed it at age 22, after aconcentrated effort on that minimal single objective.
65. In the sixth form, on tryingto study the chemistry textbook, for all that the subject fascinated him (andhis father was a FRIC and a head of chemistry research who invented a method ofanalysis) he could never get beyond the first page, he just could not rememberit. Contrast Term 12 (Age 16):“Certainly redeems himself when it comes to a test of memory…”.
66. And a problem of disordered waking/sleeping overwhelmed theClaimant, to the extent that he became unable to wake up till the afternoon andunable to get to sleep until breakfast-time.
67. He was intensely embarrassed to be arriving at school in the lateafternoon, and increasingly tended not to go at all. No-one offered him any help with what to do about any of theseproblems. As the preceding excerptsfrom school reports make clear, they were as utterly baffled as himself, and hewas too embarrassed and social-phobic and confused to say anythinghimself. People with mentaldisorder/disability tend to be in denial as do their parents due to the stigma.
68. The year after Alcester Grammar School the Claimant studied A-levelMusic (one year) at Bromsgrove College of FE. The result was a D grade.
69. The next year he re-enrolled at Bromgrove College of FE to retakeMusic and Physics A-levels. But hissymptoms increased again and his attendance became as infrequent as it had beenin the last year at the school. He tookno exams that year.
70. In the period of some years before or after leaving school, theproblems became worse and at some point therein he developed some severeallergic reaction to hair-washing and bath-ing. In consequence he also became very phobic of hair-washing andbath-ing.
71. In an attempt to correct his sleep-wake cycle, the Claimant devisedthe idea of a week of six “days” each about 27 hours long. In due course this did lead to him waking at7am and going to college. But the nextday he woke at 10am, and the six “days” had been such a horrendous experiencethat there was no question of trying any such again.
72. His memory and attention deteriorated to the extent that he couldnot get to the end of a sentence before forgetting its beginning. This made reading, writing, listening andspeaking almost impossible. His secret“thinking-books” (detailed below) indicate his attempts at “practicing” ofconcentrating on listening to the radio, something no normal 20-year old wouldeven think of doing let alone writing down the idea.
73. In an attempt to cope with the severe memory and attention deficits,and try to make progress in understanding and resolving his manifold problems,the Claimant started to write his thinking down in secret thinking-books, touse a process of paper-assisted thinking. The content of these thinking-books was (mainly) not like the organisedrecord-keeping or note-taking of healthy people but rather comparable to thescrap paper a student might use for doing a maths calculation.
74. These secret thinking-books have provided, fortuitously, acomprehensive, direct, and uncontrived record of the symptoms of his illnessesand personal experiences thereof. They contain repeated references to depression,indecision, sleeping disorder, tiredness, allergy, phobias, shyness, socialanxieties, difficulties with concentration/ attention, sense of failure andstriving to solve the mystery of what had happened and how to regain normalfunctioning again.
75. He started writing in the first of his secret thinking-books atabout the demise of his college attendances at age 20, and he continued throughapproximately ten of such notebooks till about age 28. The earliest thinking-books contained veryprimitive, disorganised, unsound ideas as befitted the very naive, veryinexperienced and ignorant young person with prematurely truncated educationaldevelopment.
76. By the time he was writing his lattermost thinking-books, atapproximately age 28, the content had greatly advanced in quality such that inparts it was beginning to form the basis of the documents for publication whichhe started writing at that time. Butthat improvement was not due to mere maturation or passage of time as will beexplained further below.
77. After the collapse of his second year of studying at BromsgroveCOFE, in the summer break he obtained a casual job as an office assistant tothe engineers at Redditch District Council. But by the third week he was becoming increasingly overstressed and hegave notice of resignation.
78. Throughout the following academic year he was neither employed norenrolled in any course. Histhinking-books indicate much preoccupation with trying to get accepted byuniversities.
79. In the academic year after that, he enrolled at Redditch COFE tostudy English Language O-level and Economics A-level. He also attended two extramural (non-examined) evening classes inpsychology at the University of Birmingham. He made an obsessive focus on preparing for the English Language exam,as can be seen in his secret thinking-books. Only in that way did he manage to pass it at last. But his studying of the A‑level Economicscollapsed yet again and he did not attend the exam.
80. Meanwhile he had been given a conditional offer by BirminghamUniversity, and an unconditional offer by Aston University, and lacking inconfidence that he would pass the Economics he accepted the unconditionaloffer.
81. Thus, five years behind time, he managed to start on a course ofHuman Psychology at Aston University, but not due to any improved examinationresults (apart from at last passing English Language). Within weeks the same problems overwhelmedhim and his studying ground to a halt as he became engrossed in trying tounderstand what was happening to him.
82. The most noticeably troubling problems at this time were thesleep/wake problem, the washing allergy/phobia, paralysing indecision, andcrippling social phobias. He alsorecalls an incident in an experimental class: the students all had to do some tedious arithmetic (this being beforethe age of calculators) and it took him much longer to do than the otherstudents, long after all the others had finished, to his great embarrassment asif he was making an exhibition of himself as some sort of idiot.
83. In due course he failed all the first year exams (due touncategorised psychological illness), as is indicated by the letters ofcorrespondence with the university about his appeal against termination andthereafter the possibility of rejoining the course on basis that he wassupposedly not ill anyway.
84. At this time, he developed all sorts of peculiar symptoms, includingmigraines, outbreaks of extreme sweating, hyperactivity, and delirium.
85. A crucial event occurred in the year after the university when theClaimant was a tenant sharing in a house in Moseley, Birmingham. His waking/sleeping problem was still verymuch present, so he was sitting awake in the kitchen late at night. He noticed a book on a shelf, with its titleconcealed by a paper wrapping. Heopened it and found that it was a very detailed compilation of informationabout nutrition (Let’s Eat Right to Keep Fit, by Adelle Davis). He could barely read coherently, and barelyremember any of what he did read, but he was impressed by the thoroughness andrationality of that book, and so he struggled to carefully study it, re-readingsentences many times over due to the memory difficulty, and started to followits recommendations.
86. The great importance of that development is that almost all othervictims of mercury poisoning have not had that crucial information available tothem. The power of that book can beseen in that in the few years before reading it he acquired 19 of the 20amalgams, whereas in the more than three decades since he has needed only onemore (and no lost teeth).
87. That book dated from many years before the present, and did not sayanything about mercury poisoning. Itwas only many years later that nutritionists became commonly familiar with theimportance of selenium, zinc, glutathione, in any role let alone incounteracting mercury. But nevertheless, the information that was fortuitouslyinvaluable in counteracting the mercury. That is because one can discern the different nutritional deficienciesfrom the characteristic symptoms, regardless of what is causing thosedeficiencies. And mercury produces awhole load of nutritional deficiencies, not least as an anti-antioxidant.
88. Due to following this advice some of the commonplace mercurysymptoms became eliminated or reduced to greater or lesser extent. These included depression, obsessions,anxiety, some of the phobias, migraine, periodontal, and the IBS he wasburdened by for several years at a later stage.
89. The next month the Claimant moved to an unfit flat (rising damp, dryrot, rats, mice, seriously improper electrics, and rain flooding in six placesinter alia) and in the subsequent years he continued working on trying toimprove his health and overcome his problems among other things.
90. He spent a lot of time trying to find ways of earning money. Among other things working on trying todevelop inventions. He spent much timeresearching them in the patents libraries. But it is almost impossible to succeed even with a brilliant inventionunless one already has substantial personal energy or resources to do theproduction oneself.
91. Meanwhile, like most mentally disabled people he was very reluctantto think of himself as disabled. Heinstead registered as able and available for work, though this was partlybecause he could find no indication that he could get social security benefitsotherwise (not having any NI contributions record).
92. But then a new policy was introduced, whereby unemployed claimantshad to attend monthly interviews to report their job-seeking attempts. He attended a number of these interviews,and meanwhile attended job application interviews even though they bore noresemblance to any job he wanted to do or would even be capable of actuallydoing.
93. He was somehow transferred toinvalidity benefits instead. He has norecall of how it happened, but guesses that at some point the employers startedcomplaining about a clearly pathological candidate coming to theirinterviews.
94. In 1980 he read the here-attached science report in the Times aboutlight and sleeping, and this enabled him to invent and make the world’s firsteffective light-therapy device. Thissubstantially reduced the sleep/wake problem.
95. However, the improvement of sleeping pattern did not resolve theentire collection of problems. He then identifiedthat some key problems were varieties of neuroses, more specifically phobiasand to a lesser extent obsessions. There was especially the problem that he regularly tended to blush forno reason (in public), and that he had a phobia of getting in such blushingsituations (i.e. just about any public situation). And he found just about any social encounter to betraumatic.
96. He struggled to overcome this social phobia, via a notion that themore one exposed oneself to social situations the less salience any particularsituation would have, a sort of habituation. He entered into correspondence with the Society for BehaviouralPsychotherapy about this. He thinkseventually the combination of his own habituation therapy, combined with hisunderstanding of the anti-neurotic effect of vitamin B6 substantially resolvedthese problems.
97. The next year his curiosity was aroused by a report that high IQ ofparents was associated with autism, and claims of a seeming relationship ofgenius with autism. Therefrom heaccidentally discovered the first of his still-unchallenged theories, thegene-expression theory of autism (and IQ). Only by huge investment of years of time and effort was he able to writeup the theory to publishable form. After nine years the autism theory was accepted for publication by theworld’s most-cited-ever scientist HJ Eysenck (“well worth publishing”), and theworld’s most famous autism researcher Bernard Rimland wrote of it as“excellent” “fine work” and “Robin P Clarke is one of those rare souls”. But the vast majority of professionalscientists are intensely hostile to ideas coming from a person devoid ofinstitutional status or qualifications. Everyone else then assumes that because the “leading” Professor S B-Cavoids ever mentioning it (like those non-mentioning amalgam “experts”), itmust “therefore” be obviously worthless rubbish anyway.
98. He then moved on to publishing some of the other theories.
99. In 1992 the Claimant enrolled yet again to take A-levels, this timeBiology and Sociology at Matthew Boulton COFE. But by the third week he was too exhausted to continue. So he turned back to concentrating on thetheories and hopelessly trying to make a success of the many businessopportunities that are advertised as relatively easy means to earn anincome.
100. In 2003, he at last discovered the(seemingly sole) cause of his several decades of severe reaction towashing/bath-ing. Namely defective hotwater systems without a lid on the tank, such that the tank thus became contaminatedby dust and thereafter organisms. Aspart of dealing with this, following fruitless correspondence with hislandlords, the Claimant installed a shower and bought some kettles.
101. His expectation was that he hadthereby resolved the central cause of his health problems and could now at laststart to make progress in his life. Butinstead he still continued to experience most of the same symptoms asbefore. He was regularly exhausted orotherwise feeling unwell. Just a modestamount of exercise was enough to bring on familiar threatening sensations (ofacute oxidative stress?).
102. After 35 years of illness, he wasstill struggling unsuccessfully for the ordinary health that others find socasually.
103. When the dental hospital proposed toadd yet another amalgam he challenged them to provide evidence of safety. Their reply was unconvincing and they failedto respond to his rejoinder.
104. The NHS would not remove the amalgams,and as a chronic benefits dependant he could not afford the high cost of payingfor it himself. So he continued tobecome more ill from the continuing enforced poisoning.
Present condition
105. Much experience shows that theClaimant’s present symptoms would be much worse or fatal were he not followinga very tedious regime of constant precautions. For instance: carefully ensuring a nose-level draught at all times (evenwhen freezing outside); correct levels of selenium and zinc and the full rangeof essential antioxidants at regular spacing throughout every day;conscientiously avoiding both over-exercising and under-exercising; no junkfood (i.e. what most people consider normal food); preventing the IBS by dailyintake of glutamine and avoidance of all gluten (wheat etc); avoiding thewashing/bath-ing reaction by avoiding all hot-water tank systems; keeping hislife very simple with limited activity to avoid mental overload; trying to keepa bit of floss-tape separating the gold from the adjacent amalgam (which makesa big difference to vapour output). Allthese precautions are born of bitter experience rather than any mere theory orsuperstition.
106. While he is far less mentallydysfunctional than in the 1970s, he continues to have a serious problem of slowmemory, attention, indecision, slowness, sleep/wake, and especially lack ofenergy and endurance, among other things such as inability to adapt normally tochanges of temperature (such that he becomes drenched in sweat while others arenochalantly wearing warm coats). Hebarely copes now whereas in the 1970s he would not have been coping at all (andwasn’t then running his own household, to any standard).
107. A report from a medical practitionerdetailing the readily observable aspects of his current condition is attached.
Causation
108. It is the Claimant’s case on causationthat:
(a) had the Defendants not given defective advice concerning usage ofdental amalgam, which failed to properly reflect the evidence of harm and lackof evidence of safety, the Injuries as particularised in this Claim would nothave occurred;
(b) the defective advice from the Defendants caused NHS personnel toinstall amalgams, in increasing numbers, and with insufficient caution, and tofail to remove them at any stage;
(c) those amalgams then released mercury, during installation and orthereafter, and as vapour and otherwise, such as to enter the Claimant’s bodyand thereby cause chronic injuries characteristic of chronic dental mercurypoisoning.
109. Numerous facts point towards dentalmercury as the cause.
(a) Firstly the predominant and most disabling symptoms are a whole listof some most characteristic features of dental mercury poisoning as reported bymany studies and individuals we can cite in evidence.
(b) The symptoms include some quite peculiar ones notably associatedwith chronic mercury poisoning, such as an unpleasant reaction to alcohol,lengthy crashes starting after stopping exercising, lack of normal temperatureadjustment.
(c) This collection of symptoms developed after amalgam had been placedin teenage years, and have not gone away in 40 years since.
(d) The symptoms extend well beyond any standard psychological ormetabolic syndrome recognised by the DH etc.
(e) In the 1990s he had taken a tablet of alpha-lipoic acid (ALA), whichis considered an exceptionally health-enhancing antioxidant. It made him so ill that he never took a secondtablet. Only many years later he learntthat it is a key chelating agent which gets mercury out of the brain but alsoallows it to flood into the brain. It should not be used until several months after amalgam removal whenout-of-brain levels have fallen sufficiently.
(f) He had improvements in the last few years due to his growingunderstanding of mercury vapour and devising countermeasures thereof. For instance arranging elaborate nose-levelventilation systems, and antidoting with selenomethionine, zinc, mackerel, etc,avoiding everyday chelators, being cautious about excessive exercising.
(g) He had a notable improvement in 1975-6, on getting much outdoor airin those two years of famous drought, to the extent that he was at lastaccepted into a university.
(h) But then in 1976-7 in his small under-ventilated university room(Stafford Tower), the symptoms rapidly became worse again (effectively ceasingattendance by the second term).
(i) The checklist in Andrew Hall Cutler’s book at page 56-9 gave a score of at least 99.9% certainty ofmercury poisoning.
(j) In breach of published Directions For Usage of amalgam, a gold inlayhas for many years been placed such that it contacts with amalgam occlusallyand proximally. This causes a galvanicbattery effect and massively increases mercury output. As AHC’s book says on page 82, “The work hasto be re-done immediately, removing all amalgam from contact with a dissimilarmetal. This is very dangerous…”. The Claimant’s attempts to get NHSpersonnel to do anything about this were persistently unsuccessful, so toameliorate he has tried to keep a piece of floss-tape wedging the gold andamalgam apart. But it falls out and heforgets to reinstate it.
(k) After 40 years of illness in 2009 he at last got two test resultsconfirming a mercury problem. Firstly,the MELISA measurement of abnormal level of immune reactivity which produced3/3 mercury positive results. This testis not some fanciful pseudoscience but rather is well-attested by numerousstudies published by reputable scientists.
111. That mercury affected the Claimantwhen it did not affect others can be understood as follows:
(a) He had a huge number, nineteen, fitted within ahandful of years, and producing the huge vapour intake indicated above.
(b) It only takes a moment of impaired suction toenable the patient to inhale the amalgam dust which then lodges in the lungswhere its very large surface area causes a greatly increased intake of mercuryvapour.
(c) A reiterated principle in the literature isthat a person has a certain amount of initial tolerance of mercury but aftercontinuing intake the capacity for detox/removal becomes impaired and finallyexhausted. Thereafter, a level ofintake that has no noticeable effect on others, in the words of Tuthill (inconcurrence with many others) “makes a mental wreck of its victim”.
(d) Mercury during infancy tends to act as anantiinnatia factor, in lower levels causing increased IQ. It follows that genes reducing mercuryremoval will tend to cause raised IQ. The Claimant had a particularly high IQ (~180, even higher than his fourbrothers), which could very likely have been partly due to one or moremercury-retaining genes. And thosegenes would also cause a genetic vulnerability to mercury poisoning.
(e) There were breaches of Directions For Usage,namely gold in occlusal and proximal contact with amalgam, excessive use, usein a case with immune sensitivity (melisa test).
Any reasonable alternative explanations?
112. No other causal event happened around age 16-17 that couldaccount for this drastic deterioration followed by permanent invalidity. The Claimant had continued living at thesame address as for the previous 13 years, and there was no change of householdor of school. He continued to sharemeals with his parents and four brothers, there were no environmental incidentsin the locality, and no onset of symptoms among the six other family members orhis school colleagues.
113. School reports of the last two yearsindicate a mystery, not present before: “A rather enigmatic personality”; “Whydoes he fail to show them here?”; “His attitude and behaviour perplexes me”;“His enigmatic personality….”.
114. The collection of symptoms does notcorrespond at all well with any recognised syndrome (other than chronic mercuryvapour), such as neurosis, schizophrenia, bipolar, dementia, delirium, autism,stroke, etc. The symptoms extend wellbeyond any purely psychological syndrome.
115. Schizophrenia can begin in late teensbut this has clearly never been schizophrenia. The most schizophrenia-diagnostic symptoms have never been present, atany time in approximately 4 decades of mental disability, and most of thesymptoms are not at all characteristic of schizophrenia.
Limitation/ knowledge
116. This case falls within the scope ofLimitation Act 1980 s.11, by which there is normally a time-limitation of 3years from the “date of knowledge”.
117. The Claimant could not reasonably beexpected to file a claim at a time when he lacked knowledge of clear facts andinstead had only vague, confidently-dismissed suspicions available to him, suchas could not enable a successful claim and would rightly be dismissed asinadequate.
118. In the present case the nearestequivalent of “knowing” these key “facts” would be when the Claimant hasreceived information sufficient to justify confident dissenting views that (a)amalgam toxicity does indeed exist, (b) he himself has been injured by suchamalgam toxicity, and (c) the Defendants’ advice was biased to a non-trivialextent.
119. It was only by 2009 that the Claimantcould with adequate reasonableness form opinions (i) that the Defendants wereunacceptably negligent and (ii) that his own injuries were very much likelycaused by the amalgam and hence by that negligence….and reasonably hope thatthose same facts could persuade a court to the same opinions.
120. Thus the Claim has been filed withinthe designated limitation period.
121. Furthermore, even if there had been anearlier “date of knowledge” in this case, various criteria for discretionaryexclusion indicated in s.33 (1) and s.33(3) would apply.
Particularsof Damages
122. The losses incurred by the Claimantare set out in the Schedule of Losses served with these Particulars of Claim.
123. The Claimant also claims interestpursuant to Section 35A of the Senior Courts Act 1981 on the amount found to be due to the Claimant at suchrate and for such period as the Court thinks fit.
AND the Claimant claims:
(1) Damages.
(2) Interest pursuant toSection 35A of the Senior Courts Act 1981, to be assessed.
STATEMENT OF TRUTH
I believe that the facts stated in theseparticulars of claim are true.
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Signed
Robin Philip Clarke
Claimant
