The following letter from Dr. Michael Silverman was emailed and faxed today, Monday Februrary 12, to members of the Dental Organization for Conscious Sedation.  It is reprinted here with permission.

If you haven’t already sent a letter of protest to the ADA, you must do so today!  Time is of the essence.

The more we dissect the ADA’s proposed revisions to its anesthesia guidelines, the more insidious we discover them to be.  We only have a very short window to kill these proposals before they do irrevocable harm to us and our patients.

Did you know, for example, that without meeting onerous new certification requirements the ADA now proposes banning dentists from providing Valium® as a premedication for anxious patients in conjunction with the administration of N2O during treatment?

Shocking, but true!

Although dentists have used Valium® alone with N2O safely and effectively to treat millions of patients since 1963, the ADA says dentists need more training still.

The ADA’s new anesthesia guidelines will only acknowledge a dentist to be in compliance with the guidelines if he/she takes a 14-hour N20 certification course followed by a 16-hour certification course in minimal sedation.  To top it off, the dentist will not be allowed to leave the premedicated patient’s operatory until the patient is ready for dismissal, even if the patient is being monitored by other qualified personnel.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Don’t permit it.

Please take a moment today to let the ADA hear your voice of strong opposition.  We need you to write a letter of protest and mail it to TEAM 1500, the non-profit coalition that is coordinating our protests.  Tell the ADA you won’t be regulated back into the Stone Age.

We need to have your letters in hand no later than Friday, February 16^th.  That is just four days from now.

Mail your protest letter today to:

ADA Protest

C/o TEAM 1500

P.O. Box 3714

Beverly Hills, CA ostalCode>90212ostalCode>

To read what other dentists are saying and to obtain specific guidelines for your letters, visit the www.team1500.org web site.

See these specific articles:

Silence Is A “Vote” To Hand Over Your Dental License

http://team1500.org/2007/02/03/silence--is-a-vote-to-hand-over-your-dental-license.aspx

Protest Letter Writing Guidelines

http://team1500.org/2007/02/12/protest-letter-writing-guidelines.aspx

What Other Dentists Are Writing

http://team1500.org/2007/02/05/show-us-what-youve-got-ada.aspx

What Patients Are Writing

http://team1500.org/2007/01/28/it-is-not-about-the-dentists.aspx

Regards,

Michael Silverman, DMD

President and Co-Founder

p.s.  Although we have extended the deadline for receiving letters to this Friday, February 16.  You mustn’t delay.