Hal Huggins
Hal Alan Huggins (1937 – November 29, 2014) was an American alternative dentistry advocate and campaigner against the use of dental amalgam fillings and other dental therapies that he believed to be unsafe. Huggins began to promote his ideas in the 1970s and played a major role in generating controversy over the use of amalgam. Huggins's license to practice dentistry was revoked in 1996 after a panel found him guilty of gross negligence. Since then, he continued to publish on the topic of mercury and human health and believed that dental amalgam and other dental practices were responsible for a range of serious diseases. Many of Huggins' health claims have been criticized as pseudoscientific and quackery. Life and career Huggins received his DDS in 1962 from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. In 1973, he became involved in the study and research of mercury toxicity and its impact on human health. Through the course of these investigations, Huggins earned an MS from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs in 1989 with special emphasis in toxicology and immunology. Huggins subsequently became a prolific campaigner against the use of amalgam dental fillings, creating the Huggins Diagnostic Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. At the Center, patients were charged up to $8,500 apiece for an intensive 2-week course of treatment including the removal of all amalgam fillings. Huggins claimed in his books that the Center's profits funded research and free care. The Center was closed in September 1995 after a series of lawsuits against Huggins alleging negligence and fraud. TIME reported that despite Huggins's difficulties, some patients continued to swear by his treatments; former Enron chairman Kenneth Lay had his fillings removed by Huggins in 1991 and reported resolution of an "unexplained numbness" as a result. Huggins received a series of warnings from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for violating good manufacturing practices and marketing unapproved medical devices. In the mid-1980s, Huggins was investigated by the FDA for his marketing of the "Amalgameter", a device which claimed to detect "positively or negative charged dental fillings". The FDA found that the Amalgameter was a simple battery-powered ammeter, but was being promoted with a variety of scientifically unsubstantiated claims about dental fillings. The FDA reported in 1989 that Huggins had ceased manufacturing the device, but that "many could be around to dupe unsuspecting dental patients for a long, long time." In 1996, a Colorado state judge recommended that Huggins's dental license be revoked, citing his use of "'deceptive yet seductive advertising' to trick chronically ill patients into thinking that the true cause of their illness was mercury." Huggins's license was subsequently revoked by the Colorado State Board of Dental Examiners for gross negligence and the use of unnecessary and unproven procedures. TIME reported the judge's conclusion that Huggins "diagnosed 'mercury toxicity' in all his patients, including some without amalgam fillings." Huggins contended that the revocation of his license was politically motivated in retaliation for his claims that amalgam fillings caused disease and claimed