1. Hal Alan Huggins 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.
12 Facts About Hal Huggins
1. 2.
Hal Huggins received his DDS in 1962 from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.
3.
Hal Huggins subsequently became a prolific campaigner against the use of amalgam dental fillings, creating the Hal Huggins Diagnostic Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
4.
Hal Huggins claimed in his books that the center's profits funded research and free care.
5.
The center was closed in September 1995 after a series of lawsuits against Hal Huggins alleging negligence and fraud.
6.
Hal Huggins received a series of warnings from the US Food and Drug Administration for violating good manufacturing practices and marketing unapproved medical devices.
7.
Hal 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.
8.
Hal Huggins died on November 29,2014, at the age of 77.
9.
Hal Huggins convened a conference on the biocompatibility of dental materials at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, with the assistance of a foundation called the Toxic Element Research Foundation that, according to Time magazine, is used by Hal Huggins to promote his views.
10.
Hal Huggins has argued that amalgam can cause digestive problems such as Crohn's disease and ulcers, mood disorders such as depression and fatigue, autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, scleroderma and lupus, high or low blood pressure, arthritis, tachycardia, mononucleosis, and cancers such as leukemia and Hodgkin's disease.
11.
Hal Huggins claimed that dental care according to his understanding of dentistry has allowed wheelchair-using patients diagnosed with multiple sclerosis to walk unassisted within weeks.
12.
Hal Huggins opposed the pasteurization of milk, based on his claim that neither animals or humans can assimilate calcium from it.