Dental care is just as important as medical care yet many Americans cannot afford it. The cost of seeing a dentist, let alone having any dental procedures, is very high. Most, if not all, dental insurance plans have a small annual benefit. I propose dental care should be part of our health insurance plan, after all, they are intertwined. People would have the opportunity to address poor dental health as there would be no limit to coverage. It’s awful that $1500-$3000 is the maximum benefit when a root canal and a crown would eat that up easily.
23 Likes
We’ve paid for dental insurance for 30 plus years. Can’t get implants without a second mortgage. Implants should be covered. PERIOD. They should be affordable. PERIOD. A healthy mouth is HEALTH CARE
11 Likes
Dear American Dental Association and U.S. Technical Advisory Group members,
I am writing to ask the ADA and Technical Advisory Group to address the issue of prevention of prion transmission via dental tools. In 2006, an article came out in the Canadian Journal of Dentistry pointing out the need for proper sterilization of dental tools to avoid prion transmission between patients. It went unheeded.
“Conclusions: The theoretical risk of transmission of prion disease through dental treatment emphasizes the need to maintain optimal standards of infection control and decontamination procedures for all infectious agents, including prions.”¹
We used to think prions were rare in the population and were only present in the central nervous system but today we know that is no longer the case. Prions can be present in many body parts including blood and skin. This raises obvious concerns for dental work, especially teeth cleaning which almost always involves patient blood on dental tools.
“Our results showed that PrPSc[prions] could be detected with 100% sensitivity and specificity in blood samples from vCJD patients. Detection was possible in any of the blood fractions analyzed and could be done with as little as a few microliters of sample volume. The PrPSc concentration in blood was estimated to be ~0.5 pg/ml. Our findings suggest that PMCA may be useful for premortem noninvasive diagnosis of vCJD and to identify prion contamination of the blood supply.”²
“RT-QuIC assay detected prion seeding activity in skin from all 23 CJD decedents but not in skin from any non-CJD control individuals (with other neurological conditions or other diseases) during blinded testing. Although sCJD patient skin contained ~103- to 105-fold lower prion seeding activity than did sCJD patient brain tissue, all 12 mice from two transgenic mouse lines inoculated with sCJD skin homogenates from two sCJD patients succumbed to prion disease within 564 days after inoculation. Our study demonstrates that the skin of sCJD patients contains both prion seeding activity and infectivity, which raises concerns about the potential for iatrogenic sCJD transmission via skin.”³
And evidently many people we never realized before have prions in their bodies.
“Two proteins central to the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease act as prions** — misshapen proteins that spread through tissue like an infection by forcing normal proteins to adopt the same misfolded shape — according to new UC San Francisco research. Using novel laboratory tests, the researchers were able to detect and measure specific, self-propagating prion forms of the proteins amyloid beta (Aß) and tau in postmortem brain tissue of 75 Alzheimer’s patients.”⁴
“Down syndrome (DS) is caused by the triplication of chromosome 21 and is the most common chromosomal disorder in humans. Those individuals with DS who live beyond age 40 y develop a progressive dementia that is similar to Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Both DS and AD brains exhibit numerous extracellular amyloid plaques composed of Aβ and intracellular neurofibrillary tangles composed of tau. Since AD is a double-prion disorder, we asked if both Aβ and tau prions feature in DS. Frozen brains from people with DS, familial AD (fAD), sporadic AD (sAD), and age-matched controls were procured from brain biorepositories. We selectively precipitated Aβ and tau prions from DS brain homogenates and measured the number of prions using cellular bioassays. In brain extracts from 28 deceased donors with DS, ranging in age from 19 to 65 y, we found nearly all DS brains had readily measurable levels of Aβ and tau prions.”⁵
Alzheimer’s and Down’s Syndrome are prion diseases. Parkinson’s Disease and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis are also being examined as being possible prion diseases.Patients that were Covid vaccinated could also have prions in their bodies.
“Based on in vitro and in vivo experimental evidence relating to prion and prion-like disease, we extrapolate from the compelling evidence that the spike glycoprotein of SARS-CoV-2 contains extended amino acid sequences characteristic of a prion-like protein to infer its potential to cause neurodegenerative disease. We propose that vaccine-induced spike protein synthesis can facilitate the accumulation of toxic prion-like fibrils in neurons. We outline various pathways through which these proteins could be expected to distribute throughout the body … Specifically, we describe the spike protein’s contributions, via its prion-like properties, to neuroinflammation and neurodegenerative diseases; to clotting disorders within the vasculature; to further disease risk due to suppressed prion protein regulation in the context of widely prevalent insulin resistance; and to other health complications. We explain why these prion-like characteristics are more relevant to vaccine-related mRNA-induced spike proteins than natural infection with SARS-CoV-2 … Finally, we describe the implications of our findings for the general public, and we briefly discuss public health recommendations we feel need urgent consideration.”⁶
Not only is the spike protein possibly prion-like, but it remains in the body for a long period of time, even longer if the patient keeps getting boosters. No one knows how long the spike protein can remain in one’s body.
“TheminimumtimePP-Spikewasdetectedwas69daysaftervaccination,whilethemaximumtimewas187days.”⁷
Given these new facts, dentists should realize they may be treating prion infected patients on a daily basis. They should also realize that they are likely spreading prion diseases to other patients also on a daily basis as long as they refuse to use proper sterilization of dental instruments. I realize the sodium hydroxide that WHO recommends for prion disinfection⁸ damages dental instruments but we are talking about a fatal disease for which there is no cure. There is no excuse for the ADA and the Technical Advisory Group to have ignored this problem for so long. In my opinion, dental treatments and blood transfusions have probably been the main causes of spread of these diseases. It is time for a change.
Notes:
¹Azarpazhooh, Amir & Leake, James L. Prions in dentistry – What are they, should we be concerned, and what can we do? Canadian Journal of Dentistry, V. 72, no. 1, 2006. https://www.cda-adc.ca/jcda/vol-72/issue-1/53.pdf
² Concha-Marambio, Luis, Pritzkow, Sandra, Moda, Fabio, Tagliavini, Fabrizio, Ironside, James W., Schulz, Paul E., and Soto, Claudio. Detection of prions in blood from patients with variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Sci Transl Med. 8 (370) 2016. Detection of prions in blood from patients with variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease - PubMed
³ Orru, Christina D. and others. Prion seeding activity and infectivity in skin samples from patients with sporadic Creutzfelt-Jakob disease. Sci Transl Med 9 (417) 2017.Prion seeding activity and infectivity in skin samples from patients with sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease - PubMed
⁴ Weiler, Nicholas. Alzheimer’s disease is a ‘double-prion disorder,’ study shows. UCSF Research May 1, 2019. Alzheimer’s Disease is a ‘Double-Prion Disorder,’ Study Shows | UC San Francisco
⁵ Condello, Carlo, Maxwell, Alison M., Castillo, Erika and Prusiner, Stanley B. Aβ and tau prions feature in the neuropathogenesis of Down Syndrome. Neuroscience 119 (46) Nov. 7, 2022. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2212954119
⁶ Seneff, Stephanie, Kyriakopoulos, Anthony M., Nigh, Greg, and McCullough, Peter A. A potential role of the spike protein in neurodegenerative diseases: a narrative review. Cureus 15 (2) e34872. https://www.cureus.com/articles/129846-a-potential-role-of-the-spike-protein-in-neurodegenerative-diseases-a-narrative-review#!/
⁷ Brogna, Carlo and others. Detection of recombinant Spike protein in the blood of individuals vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2: possible molecular mechanisms. Proteomics Clinical Applications 2023: 2300048. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/prca.202300048
⁸ World Health Organization. WHO Infection Control Guidelines for Transmissible
Spongiform EncephalopathiesReport of a WHO ConsultationGeneva, Switzerland, 23 –26 March 1999, p. 29.https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/66707/WHO_CDS_CSR_APH_2000.3.pdf?isAllowed=y&sequence=1
As a dentist- Intent is positive but real world implications to the field of dentistry would be catastrophic. Dentists stay mostly autonomous and independent. It is vital it stays this way and our profession doesn’t go the way of of medical field. Less insurance not more is the solution!! And of course- as much focus prevention as possible to curb preventable dental disease.
1 Like
I agree!
I wish dentists could be trained in nutrition. The Weston A Price Foundation has a wealth of knowledge on how to use nutrition to keep teeth healthy with Vitamin K2 and cofactors. It allows the production of matrix GLA protein to put calcium in the correct place in the body. Dr Steven Lin has a page devoted to remineralizing teeth with Vitamin K2. Vitamin K2 has disappeared from the standard American diet. The push to replace butter with seed oils and the loss of the old tradition of taking a teaspoon of cod liver oil before bed has left us without K2 and its cofactors, respectively. Excess fluoride intake can deplete magnesium in the body, leading to a magnesium deficiency. Or it may replace phosphate leading to a build up of calcium fluoride in bones and teeth, causing skeletal deformities and tooth staining. In this environment, the body has a lot of oxidative stress. Calcium builds up everywhere except where it should be (teeth and bones). I wish there were lots of studies on the impact of Vitamin K2, Vitamin D, Vitamin A, Boron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Selenium, Potassium, Natto, Manganese/cloves, and the Linus Pauling Lysine + Vitamin C protocol on getting calcium into the teeth and preventing the oxidative stress that may contribute to gum disease.
1 Like