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Hal Huggins was an American campaigner against the use of dental amalgam fillings and other dental therapies that he believed to be unsafe.〔(Dental Amalgam and Mercury in Dentistry ) Report of an NHMRC working party, ''Australian National Health and Medical Research Council'' March 1999〕 Huggins began to promote his ideas in the 1970s and played a major role in generating controversy over the use of amalgam. Huggins had his license to practice dentistry 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.〔 ==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." 〔Disciplinary proceedings regarding the license to practice dentistry in the state of Colorado of Hal A. Huggins http://www.casewatch.org/board/dent/huggins/alj.pdf | accessdate = 2015-01-23〕 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 that he had not worked as a dentist since 1984. His criticisms of dental amalgam were featured on 60 Minutes.〔CBS's 60 Minutes, December 16, 1990.〕 Huggins died on November 29, 2014 at the age of 77.〔Dr. Hal Huggins - Obituary - Legacy.com () (Retrieved January 3, 2015)〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Hal Huggins」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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