Conscious Choice Seattle: Mercury Uprising

July 2005 | Evergreen Citizen

Mercury Uprising

By Miryam Gordon

Like most of us, Christy Diemond didn’t announce, “I want to be a consumer advocate” when she was six years old.

It started like it usually does, personally. This mainstream mortgage broker and mother of two began feeling sick. She’d read a book about mercury poisoning, which stuck with her. Diemond decided to try having her (silver/mercury) amalgam fillings removed from her teeth and replaced with composites. The first time she went to a dentist, she didn’t really feel any better afterward – but thought all the mercury was taken out. It actually took three more dentists and seven more years before she was able to verify that all the amalgam was really gone.

Then she actually started feeling better. Diemond now has no more chronic fatigue, arthritis or cloudy thinking. It all stemmed from mercury poisoning.

During this long struggle, Diemond researched, read scientific reports, talked to knowledgeable chemists, and slowly became an expert on mercury poisoning. She found, for instance, that 80 percent of Americans have amalgam fillings in their mouths.

Amalgam fillings are 50 percent mercury, she says. Gradually, Diemond began to give speeches, telling people what she learned.

“I always believe there is a source (of a problem), and if you get rid of the source, the body will heal itself,” she says.

Diemond used her own money to create a documentary on mercury poisoning, “Mercury, a Slow Death.” She made 2,500 copies and brought 550 of them to the U.S. Congress (450 for the House and 100 for the Senate). She used her own money to travel to congressional hearings. What she learned in D.C. was that our governmental agencies, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, along with the National Institutes for Health, were “covering up” what they know about mercury poisoning in amalgams.

"It’s the politics of cover up,” she says. “It’s big business and protecting the dental industry from huge lawsuits.”

Now, Diemond is on a mission – get the word out.

"I have this calling…to facilitate getting honest, forthright and truthful information to consumers so they can make informed decisions,” Diemond says.

Diemond has used her own funds to start a nonprofit organization called UnInformed Consent, going through the process of becoming a 501(c) 3 organization with the Internal Revenue Service. She describes UnInformed Consent as “a grassroots group that attempts to bring out all sides of an issue, so that by the time viewers have seen a documentary, they can make informed decisions."

Besides selling her documentary on her website (www.universityofhealth.net) for $19.99, she plans on making more exposés of this kind. Future topics include mercury in our children’s vaccines (thimerisal), insurance industries scams and Hanford’s bungled and dangerous history.

Her mission is clear:"I intend to bring it (information) out, so people don’t suffer needlessly."

Miryam Gordon is a staff writer for Evergreen Monthly.

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