140 groups request U.S. attention to dentistry

This week 140 dental organizations wrote to U.S. President Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress to request expansion of oral health coverage.

The letter does not request specific legislation or policies but rather calls generally for "strategies that include simple preventive interventions and low-cost treatments."

It asks President Obama and Congress to "rightly prioritize dental disease and oral health conditions equally alongside other serious medical conditions as you seek solutions to improve the nation's health."

As evidence of the importance of oral disease, it cites the cases of three people who died in 2007 from untreated dental disease.

• Deamonte Driver, 12, died in Maryland after his mother sought in vain for a dentist who would treat him through Medicaid. The infection from an abscessed tooth spread to his brain.
• Alexander Callendar, 6, died on a Mississippi school bus from septic shock following the extraction of two abscessed teeth.
• Diane Sharp of Utah, a Medicaid patient without dental benefits, died after a tooth infection spread to her spinal fluid.

The letter is signed by many national oral health organizations, including Oral Health America, the American Dental Education Association, and the Children's Dental Health Project. It also includes the signatures of many local nonprofit groups, insurance agencies, and universities.

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