American Dental Association Being Held Accountable for Greed

[denturist]

Republican Senator Charles Grassley’s (R-IA) call for a financial discloser from the American Dental Association (ADA) along with other medical groups is just a start of holding corporate ADA accountable for the money it wastes and spends as a nonprofit suppressing and pushing out competition. The American Dental Association lobbies federal and state legislators to disregard legislation that would regulate the denturist profession in many states that include Kentucky and Wyoming. The ADA spends money to persecute denturists.

The ADA lobbied for exclusion of language to expand the dental health aide therapists programs to states other than Alaska in the recent U.S. Senate Bill 1790. The American Dental Association, wasted money fighting Alaska and lost; trying to prevent dental health aide therapists from providing dental services to Natives of Alaska living in remote areas. The American Dental Association lobbies to suppress dental hygienists from having independent boards and practices.

The American Dental Associations total lobbying expenditures as of October for 2009 was $2,110,000.00 reported by opensecrets.org. The ADA’s self-serving political agenda is hurting consumers by suppressing qualified competitors that provide oral health services to those with disparities. ADA works against its very own vision and mission statement by suppressing competition that has been trained and educated in providing oral health care services to those that are unable to pay the high prices charged by dentist leaving Americans without needed dental care.

Many people do without needed dental care because of high prices charged by dentist and not being eligible for Medicaid, low income programs and not having dental healthcare insurance. Corporate ADA has the power and money to change the current dental care delivery system for the better if the American public would speak out against the American Dental Associations deceiving and pacifying public relations campaign for a better public image.

Gary W. Vollan L.D.
State Coordinator, Wyoming State Denturist Association
P.O. Box 332, Basin, Wyoming 82410
307-568-2047
www.wysda.org

References:

137th APHA Annual Meeting (November 7-11, 2009): Denturists: Alternative healthcare providers for oral health screenings and referrals

http://apha.confex.com/apha/137am/webprogram/Session27637.html

http://grassley.senate.gov/news/Article.cfm?customel_dataPageID_1502=24413

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/health/policy/08grassley.html?scp=2&sq=grassley&st=cse

http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?year=2009&lname=American+Dental+Assn&id=

[postulater]

1. He should check into the suppression of midwives also.

Certified Nurse Midwives are excellent at pre-natal and normal deliveries. You can pay them well and still be a bargain compared with OB/GYNs. Lower C-section rates, all the stats favor them, yet the turf wars makes them hard to find.

[LiberalAndProud]

2. All the states favor them?

I am pretty sure that midwifery is illegal in some states. It is anti-competitive and stupid, but true nonetheless.

[mopinko]

3. not states- stats np

[Abq_Sarah]

5. Stupid doesn't even begin to describe it

Birth centers lower healthcare costs. I have a friend in Santa Fe who used the midwifery center in Taos NM last year when she gave birth. Her costs were half of a regular hospital birth and included prenatal care, birth, and postpartum visits. That particular center services people from all over northern NM and southern Colorado.

[HuckleB]

15. CNMs are awesome!

But they are the minority of midwives, unfortunately.

[silverweb]

4. I heard a dentist say to a patient at the front desk...

"As long as there are lawyers, there will never be denturists in California." Then he laughed with a sneering, nasty kind of snicker.

The patient had asked about why she had once had a denturist in Florida but could find none since she moved to California, and was concerned about the much higher price for identical services from the dentist.

[HuckleB]

14. Got any more BS anecdotes?

[Manifestor_of_Light]

6. Not to mention suppressing free speech - the truth about Mercury toxicity.

If you are a dentist and talk about how incredibly toxic Hg is, they will get your license yanked.

There are about three dentists in Houston that know this and will replace your fillings, clean out the cavitations (holes where they left a ligament after removing wisdom teeth) and root canal holes that are breeding anaerobic bacteria and their metabolic toxins.

I went to one of them and got my fillings and crowns replaced. I also got two root canals pulled and replaced with a bridge.

Heard about anaerobic bacteria in biology class, perhaps? They are bad-assed buggies, the baddest of them all.

Botulism, tetanus, gas gangrene....fatal stuff.

[trotsky]

7. Wow, they must hear the cash register sound when you come in the door.

All that unnecessary but profitable dental work - good thing they can sleep at night, knowing they are stealing money from people like you.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

9. The mercury fillings are a big profit center.

Cheaper to begin with, but then they crack, fall apart, crack the tooth, which means you need a bigger filling, a crown, or a root canal to take care of it. It just snowballs. It gets more and more expensive.

I put a stop to that by getting my crowns and fillings replaced with Cerex (plastic) and my root canals pulled and the holes cleaned out.

www.iaomt.org

[Orrex]

10. When somebody makes the unsubstantiated claim that Cerex causes some dread malady...

will you run out and have all of your new fillings removed again? If not, then why not?

[Manifestor_of_Light]

17. well, I don't believe they are comparable.

The EPA says Hg is the most toxic non-radioactive substance out there, and they never say that plastic is that bad, so I doubt that will happen.

So would you let your kids eat lead paint chips? That's basically the same thing as Hg fillings.

Pb, Cd and Hg are all in the same column in the periodic table and have similar properties.

[trotsky]

11. How lucky your dentist is.

He's got a great source of income in you. Must have made quite a few boat payments off you already! And when a few years down the road Cerex is under attack by woo-ville, you'll run back to his office to get the latest greatest thing. Man does he have it good. Healthy patients with no dental problems willingly forking over money for totally unnecessary work. He must wake up and pinch himself every damn day!

[dflprincess]

12. When I was having amalgam fillings done

they were considered "state of the art". You are correct, all my molars are now capped because those fillings did eventually crack my teeth. But, 40-50 years ago when my childhood dentist was doing the work, he wasn't thinking about how he was providing a big source of income to the dentists I would have in my 40s and 50s.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

16. State of the art?

Amalgams were invented in 1840. By 1870 they were writing papers about health problems with them. So are you saying you were going to the dentist between 1840 and 1870?

Did I not understand you?

[trotsky]

18. Interestingly enough, it was the "evil medical establishment" that hated amalgam...

mainly because it made dentistry affordable and accessible to more people. (Amalgam was so much easier to work with, that a lot of less-skilled dentists could easily use it and this threatened their profession.)

So it is really funny in a way, how amalgam has come 180 degrees from being a revolutionary and "anti-establishment" product to now being bashed by the alt-medders themselves.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

19. You think Hg is good for you?

You think it's safe to put "the most toxic non-radioactive substance known" into your mouth, close to your brain, where it can be absorbed into your system, and it's a proven neurotoxin?

When you put Hg in your mouth, the dentist must use special protocols when putting it in and taking it out, because the EPA says it is quite hazardous. However, by a magical process, when it's in your mouth as a compounded filling, it suddenly becomes quite harmless.

This I don't get. I took enough chemistry in high school and college to know that chemical properties don't magically change depending on whether something is in your mouth or not.

Dentists also have a higher level of suicide and illness than other doctors, BTW.


:wtf: :grr: :banghead:

[trotsky]

20. DO YOU BREATHE AIR?!?

OMG, THERE'S MERCURY IN IT!!!

DO YOU EAT FOOD?

OMG, THERE'S MERCURY IN IT TOO!!!

IT'S A PROVEN NEUROTOXIN! IT'S IN THE AIR WE BREATHE AND EVERYTHING WE EAT! WE SHOULD ALLL BE DEAD!!!!!11!

Have you EVER heard the saying, "The dose makes the poison"?

On edit:

Dentists also have a higher level of suicide and illness than other doctors, BTW.

Prove this claim. Thanks.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

21. false analogy. Hg is NOT in everything. NO SAFE LEVEL of exposure.

Dentistry claims that it is safe to implant one of the most toxic substances known to science
into living human beings – Dentistry claims that mercury amalgam is safe and effective.
What IS a Little BIT of Mercury?

Criteria 118 World Health Organisation 1991

The No Observable Effects Level (NOEL) for mercury is ZERO

There is NO safe level of mercury vapour

On 7 January 2003, the Superior Court in San Francisco
approved the warnings on dental amalgam mercury
that are required under California's Proposition 65

Warning on dental amalgam, used in many dental fillings,
causes exposure to mercury,
a chemical known to the state of California to cause
birth defects or other reproductive harm.

Swedish Government report of 2003 states:

"With reference to the fact that mercury is a multipotent toxin
with effects on several levels
of the biochemical dynamics of the cell,
amalgam must be considered to be an unsuitable material
for dental restoration.
This is especially true since fully adequate and
less toxic alternatives are available."

http://www.robertgammal.com/AmalgamDocs/SwedishGovtReport.html

The dental associations and even government bodies tell us that amalgam is safe because only a 'little bit' of mercury comes out of amalgam fillings. They support this comment by telling us that most of the mercury comes out at the time of amalgam placement, thus insinuate that it is OK once the amalgam is set.

The fact is that mercury is released from amalgam throughout the life of the filling.

In 1996 Dr Richard S. Tobin, Ph.D, then the Director of the Medical Devices Bureau, Canada Health, wrote to the Canadian Dental Association, in response to their position statement on dental amalgam and a set of questions and answers on amalgam to be used by dentists in responding to inquiries from patients. (Click here for the full article)

Canadian Dental Association:
Q. Is the mercury which is released from fillings absorbed into the body?

A. Yes, but in extremely small amounts, i.e. in MILLIONTHS of a gram (this is very small amount, 0.000001 grams.)

Dr Tobin's Response:
"This answer is rather condescending and insulting to the intelligence of readers. By emphasizing only how small a microgram is it implies that a microgram of toxic material could not be harmful. What is significant is not now many zeroes there are in a microgram, but how many micrograms of mercury are released by and compared to the number of micrograms required to cause illness. The fact is that a level of only one hundred millionths of a gram (only 0.0001 gram) of mercury per gram of Creatinine in urine is considered to indicate clinical mercury poisoning."
The latest NH&MRC statement on dental amalgam uses the same nonsensical argument to support the continued poisoning of the population - "Very small amounts of mercury are released from the surface of dental amalgam fillings, mainly as mercury vapour. ....In this way, some mercury can reach the rest of the body and accumulate in certain organs, particularly the kidneys"

OSHA in America and Australia, has set the maximum allowable mercury vapour levels for occupational exposure based on a 40 hour/week exposure at 50mcg Hg/m3. If this level is exceeded the work place must be closed down. Everyone else is under the jurisdiction of the US EPA who have set a maximum level of 0.2mcg Hg/m3. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry which is part of the US EPA have agreed with the maximum level set by the EPA but also state that observable physiological changes will occur at levels as low as 0.03mcg Hg/m3.

Check these figures - numbers represent micrograms per cubic meter of air

OSHA - Occupational Safety & Health Association 50 mcg/m3
US Environmental Protection Agency 0.2 mcg/m3
Agency Toxic Substances & Disease Registry 0.03 mcg/m3
NOEL - No Observable Effects Level set by WHO 1991 0

In a mouth with 6 amalgam fillings 20-120 mcg/m3
Opening a mixed amalgam capsule 1000 mcg/m3
Drilling amalgam fillings - 18 inches from the mouth 4000 mcg/m3

"The number of amalgam fillings, for each age group, estimated to cause exposure equivalent to the TDI were: 1 filling in toddlers; 1 filling in children; 3 fillings in teens; and 4 fillings in adults and seniors."
(ASSESMENT OF MERCURY EXPOSURE AND RISKS FROM DENTAL AMALGAM by G. Mark Richardson PhD., Medical Devices Bureau, Environmental Health Directorate, Health Canada Executive Summary.) - (adopted by Health Canada in 1996)

Most adults and children throughout the world have far more than 4 amalgam implants! Mercury vapour levels in mouths with half a dozen amalgams have been measured up to 120mcg Hg/m3.

Dental personnel (and patients) should NOTE that levels of mercury vapour from dental amalgam (placing, drilling and polishing) within the dental environment will often exceed the level set by OSHA of 50 mcg/m3.
All patients should ensure that their dentist does NOT use amalgam and that the suction units from all operatories must be vented to the outside of the building.

Keep away from amalgam! The vapour levels are beyond belief! See the Warnings about Amalgam Removal and also the paper about the health of dentists and dental personnel.

There is not a country anywhere which has found a safe level of mercury vapour and thus the 'NOEL' or 'No Observable Effects Level' is still set at 0 mcg Hg/m3.

In other words there is NO safe level of mercury vapour!

[trotsky]

22. Mercury has ALWAYS been part of environment.

Our bodies DO have mechanisms to remove it. Yes, there are doses and forms that can be more harmful, but you are spreading fear, misinformation, and confusion.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

23. Lots of natural things are bad for us.

Mercury included. Botulism, assorted diseases, toxins, venom, allergens.

[Thickasabrick]

8. K&R

[HuckleB]

13. Oppose “Big Floss”; practice alternative dentistry

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=3222#more-3222