Dentistry

Should Dentists Be Vaccinated Against Influenza and Pertussis?

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Tdap – Tetanus, Diphtheria and Pertussis

Yes, and dentists should also have their Hepatitis B antibodies monitored.

Why?

Read this excellent piece and it explains.

The Italian study also assessed the impact of flu shots and found that while occupational influenza risk among dentists is high, dentists who receive a flu vaccine have half the absenteeism rates of nonvaccinated dentists for influenza-like illness and lower rates of recurrence. Even so, fewer than half of the dentists in the study reported receiving annual flu vaccines.

In the U.S., 10% to 20% of the population becomes infected with the flu each year. Transmission of influenza is possible for 24 hours or more before the sick person shows any symptoms.

“Other than hepatitis B, it’s all about droplets,” J. Michael Hitt, MD, an occupational medicine physician at the University of Arizona, told DrBicuspid.com. “Dental staff are bathed in droplets on a daily basis. Face shields, masks, and gloves are a big help, but innate immunity (by vaccination) will seal the deal.”

Pertussis is another infectious disease that dental care professionals should be prepared for. Based on studies that look at reporting rates, pertussis is estimated to affect 600,000 U.S. adults ages 20-64 annually, and epidemics occur in the U.S. every three to five years, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In 2010, cases of pertussis in California reached the highest reported rate since 1947, and reported cases also rose significantly in Michigan and Ohio, according to the CDC.

For me, I have already been vaccinated against influenza. Remember I was hospitalized for four days a few years ago with the flu and it was not a pleasant experience.

I will return to my physician’s office for my Tdap injection after I run the Las Vegas Half Marathon on December 4th.

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Dentistry

The Daily Extraction: Dr. Tommy Murph’s Costa Rica Extraction Courses

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Video of the Oct. 23-28, 2011 Hands On Extraction Clinic in Flamingo Beach, Costa Rica

Dr. Tommy Murph of Daily Extraction fame is giving another tooth extraction course in Costa Rica.

Here are the details:

  • Saturday March 17 thru Wednesday March 21 in Tamarindo, Costa Rica
  • Saturday June 30 thru Wednesday July 4 (Location not set yet…To be determined by December 5th)

If you really want to learn how to perform simple extractions, surgical extractions and surgical extractions of third molars, give these courses a look.

The details:

 

  • Class:  Hands On Extractions
  • Credits: Forty (40) Hours AGD PACE Approved
  • Dates: Saturday March 17 thru Wednesday March 21
  • Cost: $4000 
  • Lecture will be Given Saturday Night 6:00pm-9:30pm 
  • and all day Sunday 8am-9:30pm
  • and Monday night 7pm-until finished
  • Clinical Hands On will be all day Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday
  • Location: Tamarindo, Costa Rica

 

More information can be obtained from Dr. Murph: drtommymurph at yahoo dot com or by phone: 843-488-4357

Dr. Murph’s website is here and his extraction manuals are here on e-Bay.

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The Daily Extraction Archive

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Dentistry

Banning Soda at School Ineffective In Curbing Consumption?

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State bans on sugar-sweetened drinks in middle schools didn’t have much impact on kids’ overall consumption, researchers found.

Although the ban significantly cut down on student-reported access at school, about 85% of students reported having at least one soda or other sweet drink in the prior week whether they could get the beverages at school or not, Daniel R. Taber, PhD, MPH, of the University of Illinois at Chicago, and colleagues reported.

Bans on soda only had even less impact.

These results from surveys at schools across 40 states appeared online in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

“School is only one aspect of a child’s environment,” Taber’s group noted, “and youth have proven to be very adept at compensating for individual changes to their environment.”

The Institute of Medicine and other organizations have urged a universal ban on selling or providing sweetened beverages at school, with the rationale that limiting access at school should reduce overall consumption because students spend a large portion of their day there.

But students who reported at least daily consumption actually slightly increased their intake when the drinks were banned at school, suggesting that they more than compensated with drinks purchased at convenience stores and other locations, the researchers pointed out.

“Any impact of state school-based sugar-sweetened beverages policies on youth dietary consumption may be modest without changes in other policy sectors,” Taber and colleagues wrote.

Schools have to accompany the ban on the selling of sodas with a comprehensive education plan that delineates the problems with obesity and the role of sugary drinks. Of course, the students will simply wait until 2:30 PM and then head to the nearby store and drink their daily sodas or energy drinks.

While I do think a ban on sugary drinks, especially at elementary schools is appropriate, if it is a ban only approach, the change in behavior of drinking more healthy products will not be realized.

It is all about teaching the students what drinking too much soda and energy drinks will do to your health – especially your teeth.

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Diigo Links

Flap’s Smiles and Health Headlines: November 3, 2011

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These are my links for November 3rd from 15:40 to 15:45:

  • Thousands of lives could be saved if rest of UK adopted average diet in England, study concludes-“Around 4,000 deaths could be prevented every year if the UK population adopted the average diet eaten in England, concludes research published in BMJ Open.”

    Death rates for cardiovascular disease and cancer are higher in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland than they are in England, and it is well known that these diseases are associated with a poor diet that is high in saturated fats and salt and low in fibre, fruits and vegetables.

    The researchers therefore looked at mortality data for coronary heart disease, stroke, and 10 cancers associated with diet, including those of the gullet, bowel, and stomach, in all four UK countries for the years 2007 to 2009 inclusive.

    And they estimated average intake of 10 dietary components, including energy intake, in each of the four countries, drawn from national representative data from the Family Food Survey for the same period.

    These data showed that people in Scotland and Northern Ireland consistently ate more saturated fat and salt and fewer fruits and vegetables every day than their English cousins, while the differences between Wales and England were less consistent over the three years.

    The authors then calculated what differences in death rates could be expected from population changes in average dietary quality, using the DIETRON model — a conceptual mathematical model that calculates the impact of food consumption on health outcomes.

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  • Pete Rose Sued By Dentist — He Charlie Hustled Me!!-“Baseball won’t have him back … and now, Pete Rose’s dentist is pissed at him too … claiming the MLB legend has refused to pay for almost $3k in dental services.

    Dr. Armen Terteryan is drillin’ Rose for $2,915.00 for “dental services rendered and not paid for” back in 2010.

    According to the lawsuit, filed in small claims court in L.A., the doc claims Rose agreed to the fees before “starting treatment” … though it’s unclear which procedures were performed on the baseball star.

    A small claims showdown has been scheduled for December 14th.”

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  • Overweight Teens Don’t Seem to Grasp Weight Loss Rules –-“Obese teens who want to lose weight may not be going about it in the most healthy or effective ways, according to new research.

    Simply put, the researchers said, teens trying to drop the pounds don’t seem to fully understand the link between exercise and calories. The analysis of nearly 44,000 adolescents who participated in the Philadelphia Youth Risk Behavioral Survey showed that, among the obese, girls who exercised still drank soda and boys didn’t exercise at all.

    In addition, three-quarters of the obese teens said they were trying to lose weight, but these were also the teens more likely to smoke, possibly as a weight loss aid, the study suggested.

    U.S. childhood obesity rates have tripled over the past three decades, and nearly one in three children in America is overweight or obese today. The new study, slated for presentation at the American Public Health Association’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C., sheds some light on why reducing these rates is such an uphill battle.”

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  • NYU team gets $2.2M grant to ID caries-causing bacteria-“A New York University (NYU) dental research team has received a four-year, $2.2 million grant from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research to use whole genome sequencing to identify the strains of lactobacilli bacteria that contribute to the development of severe early childhood caries.

    Severe early childhood caries can destroy most of a child’s teeth by age 3 and disproportionately affects underserved populations, including American Indians and Alaskan natives, NYU stated in a press release. Although the link between lactobacilli bacteria and severe early childhood caries has been known for almost a century, progress in delineating which of 140 species of this bacteria are responsible for the disease has remained elusive.

    The study’s principal investigators, Page Caufield, DDS, PhD, aprofessor of cariology and comprehensive care, and Yihong Li, DDS, a professor of basic science and craniofacial biology, will analyze several hundred bacteria samples from children with severe early childhood caries and their parents, and from caries-free children and their parents. Sampling and collection will take place at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York City.”

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Diigo Links

Flap’s Smiles and Health Headlines: October 26, 2011

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These are Flap’s Health Headlines for October 26th.

    • From 234 pounds to the Miss America pageant –“Every Friday, Bree Boyce dreaded her high school gym class. Students had to run a mile under 11 minutes, and those who couldn’t finish in time would have to walk around the track for the rest of the period.

      Weighing 234 pounds, Boyce never made it in time.

      “There were a few times I tried to run because I was so embarrassed and afraid of what other kids might say. After many failed attempts, I gave up hope,” said Boyce.

      Every day, Boyce wore a baggy T-shirt and a pair of faded, size 18 jeans to school. She ducked and dodged anytime someone tried to take her picture. She deflected attention from her weight by cracking jokes.

      Five years later and 112 pounds lighter, Boyce is no longer the camera-shy girl hiding inside saggy, shapeless tees.

      She struts onstage in body-hugging evening gowns and swimsuits. She embraces the spotlight as the reigning Miss South Carolina. And she has been a guest co-host on “The View,” chatting openly about her weight.”

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  • China arrests 18 in illegal transplant crackdown-“Police in eastern China have arrested 18 people after a raid on two clinics offering illegal organ transplants, state news agency Xinhua reported on Wednesday.

    The clinics in Jinan, Shandong’s provincial capital, were raided on Sunday as doctors were preparing a kidney transplant, Xinhua cited local police as saying.

    “Police were tipped off earlier this month, and then launched a probe with the city’s health bureau against the two clinics. They found that vehicles and people regularly shuttled between the two clinics, which were not far away from each other,” the report said.

    China in 2007 banned organ transplants from living donors, except spouses, blood relatives and step or adopted family members, but launched a national system to coordinate donations after death in 2009. The organ shortage has driven a trade in illegal organ trafficking in the country.

    “Reports about illegal transplants indicate there appears to be a large underground network profiting from the country’s demand for donor organs,” Xinhua added.

    Police this month arrested three doctors for “illegally harvesting human organs” in northern Hebei province, it said. The doctors were all from Shandong.

    Nearly 1.5 million people in China need organ transplants each year, but only 10,000 can get one, according to the Health Ministry.”

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  • High fizzy soft drink consumption linked to violence among teens-“Teens who drink more than five cans of non-diet, fizzy soft drinks every week are significantly more likely to behave aggressively, suggests research published online in Injury Prevention. This includes carrying a weapon and perpetrating violence against peers and siblings.”

    US lawyers have successfully argued in the past that a defendant accused of murder had diminished capacity as a result of switching to a junk food diet, a legal precedent that subsequently became known as the “Twinkie Defense” — a twinkie being a packaged snack cake with a creamy filling.

    Responses were assessed in the light of factors likely to influence the results, including age and gender, alcohol consumption, and average amount of sleep on a school night.

    Those who drank 5 or more cans of soft drinks every week were significantly more likely to have drunk alcohol and smoked at least once in the previous month.

    But even after controlling for these and other factors, heavy use of carbonated non-diet soft drinks was significantly associated with carrying a gun or knife, and violence towards peers, family members and partners.

    When the findings were divided into four categories of consumption, the results showed a clear dose-response relationship across all four measures.

    Just over 23% of those drinking one or no cans of soft drink a week carried a gun/knife, rising to just under 43% among those drinking 14 or more cans. The proportions of those perpetrating violence towards a partner rose from 15% in those drinking one or no cans a week to just short of 27% among those drinking 14 or more.

    Similarly, violence towards peers rose from 35% to more than 58%, while violence towards siblings rose from 25.4% to over 43%.
    In all, for those teens who were heavy consumers of non-diet carbonated soft drinks, the probability of aggressive behaviour was 9 to 15 percentage points higher — the same magnitude as the impact of alcohol or tobacco — the findings showed. “There may be a direct cause-and-effect-relationship, perhaps due to the sugar or caffeine content of soft drinks, or there may be other factors, unaccounted for in our analyses, that cause both high soft drink consumption and aggression,” conclude the authors.

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  • U.K. dentist alleges ‘porcelain pornography’-“Patients who come in for cosmetic work are often seeking the perfect smile. But some dentists are compromising sound enamel and dentin to give patients unnecessary porcelain crowns and veneers, according to Martin Kelleher, BDS, MSc, a consultant in restorative dentistry at the King’s College London Dental Institute.

    In an editorial published this summer in Faculty Dental Journal (July 2011, Vol. 2:3, pp. 134-141), Dr. Kelleher discussed the dangers of aggressive, expensive, and at times unnecessary treatment of minor cosmetic problems with brittle porcelain.

    In fact, Dr. Kelleher has coined a new term for this phenomenon: “porcelain pornography.”

    It is increasingly common to see patients who have received restorative treatment that was probably of more benefit to the profits of the dentists than to the patients’ long-term dental health, he stated in the editorial.

    “In my view, many of these unfortunate patients are being robbed twice — first of their money and again of their (even more precious) sound tooth structure,” he wrote. “I call this ‘double mugging.’ ”

    According to Dr. Kelleher, the overuse of porcelain crowns and veneers originated in the U.S. to produce the “very even, very white look” Hollywood look, and various factors may have contributed to the growth of this trend.

    Some possible reasons could be patient demand from a largely superficial and image-obsessed society, Dr. Kelleher told DrBicuspid.com. “Payment systems, a fix-it culture, money, or speed could also be factors in some specific circumstances,” he said.”

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