Yes, there is UV hardening resin - but this is just a slightly improved version of the old amalgam fillings - and does the same job: drill hole, fill with stuff

Yes, there is UV hardening resin - but this is just a slightly improved version of the old amalgam fillings - and does the same job: drill hole, fill with stuff. It's considered better in that it doesn't contain heavy metals, but worse because the silver in amalgam prevents bacterial growth under the fillings and the resin is harder to apply properly. Maybe the issues with dentistry are just because of the financial incentives. The UK NHS used to pay dentists per treatment course but have recently changed to some kind of per patient/treatment hybrid system (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7485012.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7485012.stm). The old pay-per-treatment system was a) complex and b) unsurprisingly, led to a 'drill and fill' culture of lots of treatments, most of which tended to be fillings. Things have changed and got much simpler, but it's arguable if it's 'better' overall. Maybe it's just because dentists are on piecework? If A&E/ER/emergency medicine departments were paid so much per stitch, then I guess everyone would come out looking like Frankenstein's monster.