Today my able assistant and I shipped off nearly 15-pounds worth of protest letters to the 800-pound gorilla, the American Dental Association.

The letters come from more than 1,000 dentists, hygienists, other healthcare professionals and patients all of whom are asking the ADA to drop its ill-conceived plans to overhaul the guidelines for administration of oral conscious sedation.

Collectively, the letters speak for tens of thousands of dental patients who have benefited from safe, effective oral conscious sedation as administered under existing ADA guidelines. 

As the letters repeat again, and again, and again, the ADA – or more specifically the two committees handling the new proposals -- has offered absolutely zero explanation for why it wants to radically rewrite guidelines that are already in place and have been used by more than one million patients without incident.

Will the ADA respond to these letters, most of which are from dentists who have been members of the ADA their entire career?  Or will the ADA brush the protest letters aside as irrelevant, since the ADA didn’t really consult the affected dentists in the first place?

“Relevancy” is a key word here. 

If the ADA considers relevant what its members think, then I believe it will discover that the overwhelming majority of them do not want the proposed changes to be enacted.

If the ADA fails to recognize the relevancy of what its members think, then – as many of the letters to the ADA suggest – large numbers of ADA members will reconsider whether the association remains relevant to them and their careers.

The first wave of protest letters weighs about 15 pounds.  To an 800-pound gorilla such as the ADA, they may not be all that persuasive.  But history is replete with examples of “Kongs” who fall from grace because they came to view themselves as invincible.

My advice to the ADA:  Heed the calls of your own members or open the floodgates for the second and third waves that are certain to arise. 

-- DEAN ROTBART