TEAM 1500's "Save Sedation Dentistry" Campaign Quickly Surpasses 1,200 Facebook Likes

DENVER, Oct. 28, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --  More than 1,200 dentists and other concerned individuals have signaled their support for TEAM 1500's "Save Sedation Dentistry" campaign on Facebook.

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The grassroots campaign was recently launched to protest a proposal by the American Dental Association to change the ADA's guidelines for how dentists treat their fearful and anxious patients.

Those opposed to the ADA recommendation, known as ADA Resolution 77, contend it discriminates against lower-income and minority patients who will be unable to afford the higher fees that dentists will charge for their basic services should the new guidelines be adopted. 

A recent report from the Congressional Black Caucus found that 42% of African-American adults and 36% of Hispanic adults have untreated dental disease, compared with 22% of Caucasians. Untreated tooth decay in primary teeth among children ages two to eight is twice as high for Hispanic and African-American children, compared with Caucasian children.

"The cost of basic dental services is high enough already and keeping many poor people and minorities from seeing the dentist," says Dean Rotbart, director of TEAM 1500 – the Trust for Equal Access Medicine. "Making it harder and more expensive for all patients to see a dentist is a wrong-headed action on the part of the ADA."

TEAM 1500's "Save Sedation Dentistry" page can be found at www.Facebook.com/SaveSedationDentistry.

TEAM 1500 encourages all concerned oral health care professionals, dental patients, and community activists who support equal access to medicine for people of all races and income levels to "Like" the Facebook.com/SaveSedationDentistry page.

"Those self-interested ADA dentists who are pushing ADA Resolution 77 do not reflect the face of America, nor can these wealthy dentists relate to the struggles that average American dental patients face in trying to afford their dental care," TEAM 1500 says. "The last thing that is in the public's interest is for well-to-do dentists to become even richer at the expense of their patients' health."

TEAM 1500, a public-interest coalition of more than 1,500 healthcare providers and others concerned with patients' rights, notes that tens of thousands of dedicated dentists now offer affordable oral sedation treatments to their fearful and anxious patients. The vast majority of these dentists strongly oppose any ADA measure that would unnecessarily push up the cost of providing basic dental services to needy patients.

ADA Resolution 77 is scheduled to be voted on by the ADA's House of Delegates at the group's convention in Washington, D.C. on November 10^th.

In addition to its Facebook campaign, TEAM 1500 is urging all ADA members to phone their district delegates directly to protest ADA Resolution 77.  Call-to-Action details can be found on TEAM 1500's website, including a state-by-state listing of ADA House of Delegates members and their contact information. Visit: http://www.team1500.org/cta2.html.

"Sedation dentistry should not become the exclusive privilege of the upper-class," Rotbart says. 

For more information on TEAM 1500 and its campaign against ADA Resolution 77, visit www.TEAM1500.org.

Media Contact:

Dean Rotbart 
303-800-6081

SOURCE TEAM 1500

Related Links

http://www.team1500.org