Coalition Calls on Surgeon General to Preserve Access to Dental Care by Blocking ADA's Proposed Oral Health Guidelines.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- In a letter to Acting U.S. Surgeon General Kenneth P. Moritsugu, a non-profit coalition of more than 1,500 health care professionals called on the nation's chief health educator to intercede with the American Dental Association to protect the public's access to safe and effective dental care.

The Trust for Equal Access Medicine, also known as TEAM 1500, appealed to Dr. Moritsugu to use the influence of his office to block newly proposed ADA guidelines that would effectively prevent hundreds of thousands of fearful and anxious patients from continuing to receive an increasingly popular form of treatment known as oral conscious sedation, or OCS.

OCS is a safe and effective protocol for relieving the stress of dental visits through the administration of a mild oral sedative that has been on the market for decades and is in wide use by both general dentists and medical doctors. More than one million previously hesitant dental patients have relieved their anxiety thanks to family dentists who offer OCS.

The ADA's moves target OCS practitioners and would be particularly onerous to the many family dentists who administer OCS regularly in public health clinics and to the elderly and members of racial and ethnic groups, TEAM 1500 said.

"While the ADA's mission is to serve the public interest, the reality is that merit is not always the basis for its actions," wrote Dean Rotbart, director of TEAM 1500. "Unfortunately, sometimes internal political considerations trump what's in the public's best interest."

While the ADA itself affirmed the "remarkable record of safety" of OCS less than two years ago, its new guidelines, without scientific justification, would require all dentists who wish to continue to offer their patients this valuable service to more than triple the amount of educational training they receive. The cost and logistics of complying would cause thousands of dentists to stop offering OCS to their patients.

More than 1,000 dentists and loyal OCS patients have already submitted letters of protest to the ADA.

According to its mission statement, TEAM 1500 "believes that undue and burdensome regulation of health care professionals disproportionately impacts the poor and minorities and raises the cost of quality medical and dental care for all Americans."

The full text of TEAM 1500's letter to the Acting Surgeon General can be downloaded from the coalition's web site, at www.team1500.org.