ADA News (Newspaper) - December 4, 1972, Chicago, Illinois American Dental Association News December 1972 Kozo applies acupuncture therapy to a patient with trigeminal neuralgia during a re cent for members of the ADA Council on Dental Research at Lukes Medical Center in Patient keeps her mouth open during The dots on neck and arms are a form of related More pictures on Page Cooperation Pledged In Efforts To Limit Dental Fee Boosts alert from the federal government that dental fee increases ap pear to be exceeding Phase II limits has brought assurances from the ADA that the profession wants to cooperate in every way possible to see that the spirit of the regulations is carried ADA President Louis Saporito per sonally carried the message to members of the Health Industry Committees sub committee on noninstitutional health The Health Industry Commit tee is adviser to the Price which oversees the conduct of Phase Part of presentation was an explanation of the difficulties dentists face in trying to meet the complex Phase 11 rules and to apply them to a dental prac Said Saporito Taking board involving an increase in ADA Officials Skeptical of Britons Claim Of Finding Vaccine That Inhibits Caries New officials can only be highly skeptical of a vaccine that a Bri tish dental surgeon says is effective in re ducing the incidence of Geoffrey the an at a press conference here that in clinical studies the vaccine had re dental decay in children by about He also said the vaccine could be readily mass produced at a relatively low cost per unit After the press ADA of issued a statement that they had met with Smith at his but that he had declined to reveal details of his studies because of patent which he has assigned to Patents Inter national of New The ADA statement added Since there is nothing in the scientific literature about Smiths and since he has not offered reports on it at any scientific meeting of which the As sociation is ADA officials could not evaluate any of his claims and there fore can only be highly Numerous scientists in the United States and abroad have worked on the principle of a vaccine against dental de The concept is a good and if it could be brought to it would be a boon to preventive none of the investigators who are cur rently reporting their findings in animal Saporito Confers With DuVal President Louis Saporito has met with Merlin HEW assistant secretary for to dis cuss the departments implementation of the Health Manpower Training un der which dental schools have received federal support since Several items of concern to dental schools were among them the matter of enrollment increase waivers re lated to capitation Saporito was accompanied at the Washington meeting by Reginald Sul American Association of Dental Schools Donald past American Association of Den tal Examiners Hamilton ADA Council on Dental Edu and various staff members of the ADA and studies has found a vaccine which would merit testing in human Animal tests have been inconclusive as far as ef is and it is most unlike ly that the Food and Drug Administration would permit human tests based on cur rent scientific It is extraordinarily premature to pub a vaccine which has not been widely tested and which has not been submitted to the judgment of the sci According to the injected into the oral mucous stimulates antibody formation against enzymes produced by oral Smith stated that in two groups of 14 and 10 the incidence of car ies was reduced from between 80 and 95 in a comparison with the caries rate among children who did not receive the He said he followed up these studies with threeyear trials on another group of 120 children and further sub the approximately 90 reduc tion of He said Patents International had ini tiated worldwide marketing plans for the had taken preliminary steps to conform with FDA and was planning to set up a clinic in the Unit ed States to test the odd pennies for each of the range of ser is cumbersome with respect to ing for the dentist and patient To select a few services and put the full bu r den of total cost increases on how can potentially be unjust to that per centage of patients who will be bearing the brunt of increases that should be shared The Price Commission has cited Con sumer Price Index CP1 reports that show that dental fees increased between June 1971 and June between October 1971 and October Saporito said that the ADA was aware that the index showed a more than but pointed out that the dental fee index is computed from only three services selected from a wide range of procedures a dentist Said President Saporito The degree to which changes in charges for these ser vices amalgam filling for extractions for and upper dentures mirror changes in overall fee structures is not As a generalized the CPI must be given careful Saporito said that the men and women of the dental profession have high personal and professional standards of Their respect for the laws and regulations that govern our society is beyond Willful viola tions on a significant scale are we are There may be residual confusion on the part of some practitioners with re spect to the novel situation in which they find As I have already the Association wants to continue to co operate with you in every way to help such dentists to adhere strictly to the reg for so long as Phase II remains in ADA Membership Over ADA membership passed the mark during while the num ber of fully privileged members contin ued to climb above the figure reached in Total ADA membership was as of Nov which is an increase of members this Fully privileged ac tive and life members totaled which is an increase of this