By Dean Rotbart
Director

Okay, I’ll admit that I’m not exactly objective.  But do you agree with James Bramson, Executive Director of the American Dental Association, when he describes a recent news release from TEAM 1500 as “one of the most shameless misrepresentations of important public health information ever.” 

Ever? 

Those frauds at Clonaid who claimed to have cloned a human being as well as all the diet drug hucksters and miracle cancer cure folks can get in line behind me.  I, Dean Rotbart, director of TEAM 1500, have been officially anointed by Dr. Bramson and the ADA as the most shameless of all.

What is a credible organization such as the ADA doing disseminating such utter nonsense, not to mention vile?  I have a shameless theory about this – of course -- and I think the ADA’s tactics say far more about the ADA than they do about me or TEAM 1500.

My theory is that the ADA has been caught in a self-dealing imbroglio and doesn’t like the glare of exposure. 

TEAM 1500 has hammered on the ADA since early January over its nonsensical bid to overhaul existing guidelines pertaining to oral conscious sedation (OCS).  OCS is a safe, effective, time-tested, patient-tested and increasingly popular form of helping anxious and fearful patients.  The ADA knows all this and more.

The more is that OCS is biting into the incomes, influence and egos of some of the ADA’s chummy leaders – especially oral surgeons – and they seem willing to go to just about any lengths to stop general dentists from continuing to provide OCS to their patients.

Talk about shameless.  Just how shameless is it that the ADA’s own House of Delegates endorsed OCS as “remarkably safe” in late 2005, yet less than two years later the ADA’s clubby oral surgeons and their pals proposed tripling the required training hours OCS dentists would need to serve their patients?

The ADA is trying to push through these guideline changes without a single explanation – not one – of the rationale of dramatically reworking the existing guidelines, which have served the profession and public without incident.

So Dr. Bramson and the ADA grasp at any distraction they can muster.  Their investigative reporting, according to Dr. Bramson, uncovered that the TEAM 1500 news release in which we quote directly from a letter by the Acting Surgeon General praising our organization’s mission was “a total distortion of facts.”  Not 99%, mind you.  Our distortion was “total.”

In attacking TEAM 1500, I suspect the ADA hopes to take some of the focus off its own duplicity.  Here is an organization founded to serve the whole dental profession and the public at large, but instead has warped and twisted itself into a small group of power-hungry, turf-hungry dentists who will sell out its members and their patients to maintain a comfortable status quo.

If I were an ADA delegate or member, I would wonder on what basis my leadership is bringing such disregard upon my once-highly respected organization.  Rather than lowering themselves to my “shameless” status by leveling ridiculous charges, the ADA should be doing its job without bowing to self-interest.

If Dr. Bramson and his cronies at the ADA think what has emanated thus far from TEAM 1500 has been shameless, they had better brace themselves. 

There is lots more shameless truth to come.