Get yer cheap Chinese-made dental crowns and bridges here.

[Mika]

Yes, ladies and gents, lets all work together to kill off yet another hi tech US manufacturing industry.

US dental lab owners - fire your trained employees and use Pac-Sun to streamline your profits!

FEDEX will help make killing US jobs smooth and efficient! I dare you to produce dental restorations for this cheap! You better jump on the bandwagon, everyone else is (well, almost everyone).

Pac-Sun
http://www.pacsundentallab.com/AboutUs.asp

Price list
http://www.pacsundentallab.com/PacSun_Pricelist.asp


:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:



We are sliding down into the shitter faster that imaginable. I get several brochures in the mail every day from Chinese outsourcing labs like this.

[TechBear_Seattle]

1. Everyone needs false teeth made from melamine! n/t

[HereSince1628]

2. Do denstists pass along the savings to patients or just pocket the profit?

My default position is that there needs to be a value-added tax on the sale of products that are imported cheap and sold at prices that reflect American manufacturing.

I have no idea how dentists, in general, would or do handle this.

[Mika]

9. These Chinese outsourcing labs generally work with US dental labs.

Quite often the US DDS might think that the old US lab techs are fabricating the work, unaware that the lab owners have fired their well trained US based techs.

Its turning dentistry into a shim-sham operation.

[HereSince1628]

12. So the dentists don't pass along any savings to consumers?

If that is so, it is an example of why there needs to be a VAT.

Its one thing to compete and gain market share by passing along the savings, its quite another to simply put an American out of work and pocket the profit.

[Mika]

15. The lab fee is a small part of the overall price of a restoration.

Dental insurance pushes everyone who uses dental plans to cut costs. Dental labs are facing the brunt of this trend. The Chinese labs are exploiting this.

Several large US based laboratories have opened their own labs in China to exploit the cheap labor and lax regulations.

[HereSince1628]

18. If the savings, large or small, aren't passed along to the consumer

then that is the sort of profiteering that Value-Added-Tax, or VAT should be placed on the import. VAT's are widely used by developed nations to protect their consumers from profiteering that benefits only the person hiking up the price to consumers while harming national economies by putting citizens out of work.

[Mika]

20. I agree with you. But..

Sometimes cost cutting is needed to keep the DDS staff employed, and to keep US made peripheral products in-office.

A dental office costs about $500-$900 and hour just to keep the lights on and the staff employed.

Dentistry is a high tech, high cost, highly regulated, mandatory continuing ed, industry. Prices are going up ESPECIALLY if one is trying to pay fair wages and purchase US made equipment and materials.

What is needed is HIGHER WAGES for everyone, and universal health care (including dentistry).


Its a real pickle we are in.

[Ignis]

26. Wow, that's no a solution you hear everyday...add a VAT!

I'll have to give it some thought, but at the risk of being called a mercantilist, I think your idea has a lot of merit.

:hi:

[FreakinDJ]

3. New and Improved - Now with Melamine added

[PCIntern]

4. I'm sure you've seen a nickel-allergy reation in one of the patients...

It's staggering.

and scary...

[Mika]

7. Not to mention ragged margins. Little fusion. Lead. Cookie cutter anatomy.

I could go on.

:puke:

[PCIntern]

22. I have a very good relationship with the folks at the labs...

Consummate professionals - they've kept me out of trouble over the years.

I miss the old crown-and-sleeve coping cases and the full perio-prosthetic reconstructions. Now that implants are 'the thing' we don't do those with the same frequency. Loved those PFM overcases over the gold copings! elegant!

[Mika]

29. My dad was a dentist, so he pushed me into getting a job in a lab when I was young.

I started doing deliveries and cleaning out the plaster traps. It was one of the best things I ever did in this profession. I learned just how hard it is to fabricate good work. I've never seen people so dedicated to their work, and they work late into the night in order to do great work. I became a CDT in the early 80's, fooled around with some other endeavors for a while then changed my major & went to dental school. I have a lab and a tech working for me. I still do a fair amount of the fabrication, not to save money (hell no, it costs more to operate a lab than to send the work to one), but because I love doing the customized fabrication that my pts pay the big bucks for. ;)

I still do the occasional milled gold coping case, but as you say, implants are the rage. Porcelain work is where I get my kicks in the lab.


To the dedicated US lab techs who sacrifice so much of themselves -:toast: :toast: :toast:

[Mika]

5. Here's another.

http://www.fusion-dls.com/aboutus.htm

What can Brown do for you?

Ship your job to China.

[drm604]

6. People need to refuse these from their dentists.

There are legitimate safety considerations, considering the past history of Chinese made products.

I would think that insurance companies would charge more (or refuse insurance) to insure dentists for the use of these products.

[Mika]

13. Its the race to the bottom that's being pushed by the dental insurance industry.

No insurance covers the cost of a well made biocompatible US restoration.

[drm604]

24. I should have been clearer. I was referring to malpractice insurance. n/t

[eShirl]

8. oh yeah, I'd put that Chinese denture material in my mouth all day every day

:sarcasm:

[lurky]

10. Lead, cadmium, mercury....

How could having that in your mouth cause health problems? :shrug:

( :sarcasm: )

By the way, how would you know if your crown was made in the US or China? Would your dentist even know? In my experience, they take an impression then send the mold to a third-party company somewhere who turns it around in a couple weeks. For all we know the company could already be forwarding them to China and back.

[Mika]

11. Report here..

http://dentalinsider.wordpress.com/2008/02/29/lead-contamination-in-off-shore-dental-lab-restorations/

Recently, NADL was contacted by a dental patient in Ohio who has documentation of lead contamination in her dental restoration. The affected patient, a senior citizen, received a three-unit dental bridge from a dentist in Ohio. After having an adverse reaction to her dental work, and having it removed, the dentist disclosed that the prescription was sent to an offshore dental laboratory and disclosed to the patient that the restoration was made in China. The patient then had the restoration sent to a chemical laboratory for analysis. The documentation of the dental material analysis of this patient’s restoration showed unsafe levels of lead in the porcelain on the restoration.
This case has attracted the attention of an Ohio television reporter who was already working on a story about offshore dental laboratory work. As part of the reporter’s investigative research for the story, the TV station ordered a series of crowns from several offshore dental laboratories. One of those restorations contained 210 parts per million of lead in the materials. The U.S. Congress, in response to the toy recalls in 2007, lowered the acceptable levels of lead in toys to 90 parts per million.

[The Backlash Cometh]

28. I think we're intentionally being poisoned.

Did I say that out loud? Must be the cadmium in my filling. It makes me say funny things.

[Venceremos]

14. Argh

I have 6 crowns, and at least in my case, they rarely fit right on the first try. Five out of my six had to be sent back to the locally owned lab before they could be cemented in, because they didn't quite fit when my dentist initially tried to install them.

So if your dentist buys the cheap Chinese imports, what will he or she do when they don't fit right? Send them all the way back to Hong Kong for tweaking?

[Mika]

21. Usually the local lab is the broker from the Chinese labs.

FEDEX/UPS can overnight the returns/repairs to and from China. Often the DDS doesn't know that the work is being made in China.

I've seen US "labs" that outsource to China attach MADE IN THE USA stickers on the delivery boxes/bags.

The ever growing trend is direct marketing by the Chinese labs to the DDS, so now even the US "labs" that were brokering the Chinese made work are getting cut out altogether.

The few remaining wealthy can afford the high-end, higher cost US fabricated biocompatible restorations.


The profession is swirling down the toilet bowl ever faster.

[undeterred]

16. Wake up, people.

If you are poor and losing your teeth, are you in a position to gripe about where dentures come from? Is it better to be toothless and principled than to get Chinese dentures?

American Dental care is very expensive. If you have insurance it usually covers $1500 a year. That is a drop in the bucket if you have more than one problem a year. Root canals and Crowns are extraordinarily expensive, so many people end up opting to lose a tooth because all they can afford is the extraction.

A person I know had a severe toothache a few weeks ago. She is a food service worker with no benefits (even though she has held this full time job for 12 years) and works a second job. She did not feel she could afford to even visit a dentist, but we talked her into it. The problem tooth was an anchor for her partial, and without it she could no longer wear it.

She ended up having seven teeth extracted and getting a top denture. This was only possible because somebody raised the funds for her to get all the work done at once. I don't know if the denture is Chinese or not or how much it cost. She was very lucky to have people who contributed to help her.

This is the state of American Dental Insurance and care- it is out of reach for many people. If we are serious about reforming the health care system it has to include dental care and mental health care that is accessible to everyone. As long as we're on our own, people cannot be blamed for seeking care they can afford.

[codjh9]

17. God help us. WTF are they MADE FROM? I don't trust China whatsoever. n/t

[MiniMe]

19. Toxic teeth, just what we need

[Mika]

31. All the better to eat melamine with. n/t

[madokie]

23. My wife is scheduled to get some dental work in feb.

We use a local dentist who makes his own but I'll ask my wife to ask him if he still does. Last thing she needs or wants is made in china teeth.

[a kennedy]

25. I AM F***ING SICK OF SEEING EVERYTHING MADE IN CHINA

sorry just had to vent. :mad: :puke: :grr: :grr: :grr:

[Hekate]

27. 5thRec. As one with extensive restorations, I feel kind of sick after reading this thread

:kick:

[SoCalDem]

30. New and Improved!! Now..with MORE melamine...

At Pretty Tooth Beauty Dental Restorations:

We don't use lightweight metals.. WE use only the finest HEAVY metals....