If you plan to be cremated with the cavities in your mouth filled, don’t go to Larimer County, Colorado. 

Dental fillings, or, more pointedly, the mercury included in them, is the topic of discussion between regulators and the Colorado funeral home owner who wants to relocate his family-owned crematory to Larimer County.  Health officials, concerned about mercury emissions from the dental work in question, want Rick Allnut to either outfit his crematory with an expensive filter to block the minimal emissions or extract the offending teeth before cremation.

You can read the entire Tribune (Northern Colorado) article here.

The article goes on to say that mercury from cremation accounts for less than eight percent of the annual mercury emissions in Minnesota (where one of the experts cited in the article works).  And while CANA and others question whether that’s even accurate, I can only wonder, “What about the other 92+ percent?”

And I applaud Mr. Allnut for making his stance clear when he told the regulators that he would not be pulling any teeth from his deceased clients.

It’s a pretty absurd suggestion, probably made by a health official who wasn’t thinking about the sensitve nature of the funeral business.