Is this what it has come to?  

Spokespeople for the American Dental Association – as this letter will demonstrate -- are now misleading their own members in an effort to justify an effort  by a tiny group of ADA leaders to construct obstacles between general dentists and their ability to offer their patients oral conscious sedation.

Let’s look at two related articles the ADA News published on May 4th pertaining to this issue.

In the first, “Group opposing revisions spins surgeon general’s letter,” Dr. James Bramson, the ADA’s executive director, calls a recent news release from TEAM 1500 “one of the most shameless misreprentations of important public health information ever.”  

The most shameless ever?  Really?

Dr. Bramson goes on to say that the ADA researched the basis for TEAM 1500’s characterization of comments by Acting U.S. Surgeon General Kenneth P. Moritsugu and “found them to be a total distortion of the facts.”

Dr. Bramson’s remarks were not only published in the ADA News, he wrote them in a message to dental society executive directors.

Out of fairness, perhaps the ADA News should have also quoted the very first sentence of Dr. Moritsugu’s April 5th letter:  “I appreciate your organization’s interest in and commitment to access for all Americans to healthcare.”

Perhaps, again out of fairness, the ADA News might have quoted the entirety of Dr. Moritsugu’s final paragraph:  “Once again, I would like to convey my appreciation for TEAM 1500’s dedication to making quality healthcare available to all Americans.”

Does that sound, as Dr. Bramson put it, as “one of the most shameless mispresentaitons of important public health information ever?”

Reasonable people may read Dr. Moritsugu’s letter differently, but to characterize TEAM 1500’s interpretation as “a total distortion of the facts” is, itself, a distortion of the facts.

Is this who really represents the ADA? Do these ADA spokespeople wish to “win” at any cost, even their integrity?

I don’t want to bore you with a line-by-line rebuttal to each sentence in the ADA News articles, but suffice it to say that Dr. Bramson attributes motives to TEAM 1500 that may be reflections of his own culpability when he says our actions are, at worst, “an attempt to deliberately mislead the public.”

In the second ADA News article, titled “Proposed anesthesia guidelines ready for next step in process,” the ADA’s Karen Fox writes that “CDEL voted to approve several modifications to the proposed revisions based on some 1,500 comments received during the open-comment period – some opposed and many supportive of the revisions to the guidelines.”

I, not Ms. Fox, underlined the two words in the paragraph above.

Since my staff and I have sent the ADA more than 1,000 comments opposed to the initial Committee on Anesthesiology proposals, the truth – if the ADA News is still interested in the truth – is that “many opposed” the revisions while only “some” were supportive, not vice versa as Ms. Fox wrote.

Didn’t ADA members deserve to know that the vast number of responses the ADA received were, in fact, opposed to the changes?  Why airbrush the truth?

The ADA News article goes on to quote Dr. Stephen K. Young, CDEL chair.  “It’s unfortunate that a small group of opponents to the revisions has attempted to brand the revisions as coming from a ‘small but influential group of dentists.’”

But ask yourselves, honestly, if what Dr. Young is quoted as saying is true.  The Committee on Anesthesiology consists of eight members.  CDEL itself is 16 voting members.  That adds up to 24 total dentists. 

Doesn’t that factually constitute a “small group” of influential dentists?  By contrast, TEAM 1500 represents more than 1,500 dentists and healthcare professionals, large numbers of whom invested the time and effort to personally write to Dr. Young to protest his Committee’s actions.

Once again, I’m compelled to ask, does Dr. Young wish to “win” at any cost, even his integrity?

I know that most ADA leaders don’t like or respect me and TEAM 1500.  I don’t ask that you do either.

But please respect the fact that TEAM 1500 does represent a significant number of dedicated, hard-working dental professionals – almost all of whom are also proud ADA members.  

I urge you to consider that as ADA leaders you represent all ADA members, not just those elite few appointed to high-level councils and committees.

Once you allow them to deliberately mislead your members (however noble some leaders may believe the purpose is), it becomes a slippery slope.

Are you truly willing to stain the ADA’s reputation to obtain a pyrrhic victory on this matter?  Why pyrrhic?  Because if the ADA House of Delegates approves these misguided proposals at the behest of Dr. Young, Dr. Bramson, and Ms. Fox, those three will be inflicting far more permanent harm on your organization
than any damage that they allege TEAM 1500 is doing.

In fact, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, it may well turn out that I, more so than Drs. Young and Bramson, am the ADA’s true ally when it comes to protecting your integrity.  Why?  Because I insist that your spokespeople retain theirs.

Sincerely,

 
Dean Rotbart, Director
TEAM 1500

P.O. Box 3714
Beverly Hills, CA 90212
Ph: 1-866-612-TEAM
Fax:  310-861-0763
dean@team1500.org

The Trust for Equal Access Medicine (TEAM) is a non-profit coalition of more than 1,500 independent healthcare providers who are dedicated to making quality medical and dental care available to all Americans.

TEAM 1500 seeks to overcome unnecessary and cost-prohibitive regulations and interference foisted upon the general public by self-serving bureaucrats and medical professionals who have constructed and defend economic and racial moats around quality, safe medical care.

TEAM 1500 believes that undue and burdensome regulation of healthcare professionals disproportionately impacts the poor and minorities and raises the cost of quality medical and dental care for all Americans.