Saturday, August 13, 2011

The Saturday Drill: August 13, 2011



To all of my readers, I have been on vacation for the past week or so....now on to the Saturday Drill.

A collection of dentistry and health related links/comments for your day.

Calif. water district sued over fluoridation program
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) is allegedly using an unapproved drug to fulfill its water fluoridation program, according to a lawsuit filed August 9 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California (Case No. 11-cv-01765-JLS-BLM).

The lawsuit, filed by four Southern California residents "on behalf of themselves and the general public," alleges that MWD is injecting hydrofluosilicic acid into the water supply for the purpose of treating disease and dental caries. It also alleges that hydrofluosilicic acid has never been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for the treatment of disease or dental caries.

"The MWD's use of an unapproved drug to medicate plaintiffs and other persons in order to forcibly treat disease and dental caries without their consent violates the Constitutional rights of these citizens and violates the Food and Drug Administration Act," the lawsuit states.

The industrial-grade hydrofluosilicic acid that the MWD uses is a byproduct of fertilizer production and should not be confused with different fluoride compounds, such as calcium fluoride or sodium fluoride, that are naturally occurring or already approved for certain uses, according to the complaint. Fluoridation is typically accomplished by adding one of three compounds to the water: sodium fluoride, fluorosilicic acid, or sodium fluorosilicate.

"MWD has chosen to medicate the plaintiffs with an unapproved drug without their consent that is not produced with controlled manufacturing practices and consistencies in impurities, and analyses of hydrofluosilicic acid indicate contamination of the unapproved drug with dangerous impurities, including lead and arsenic, and varying amounts of cadmium, mercury, beryllium, and other contaminants," the lawsuit states.

In addition, the plaintiffs claim that MWD has made public declarations that it intended to add fluoride to the water to safely and effectively treat and prevent dental disease, and then, "in a classic bait and switch, selected and initiated use of an unapproved drug to fulfill that intention."

The plaintiffs are not seeking monetary damages but are calling for the product to be thoroughly evaluated and approved before continuing to expose consumers without their consent, according to their attorney, Kyle Nordrehaug.
Connecting the Dots: Dental Medicine Team Describes How Enamel Forms
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine are piecing together the process of tooth enamel biomineralization, which could lead to novel nanoscale approaches to developing biomaterials. The findings are reported online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dental enamel is the most mineralized tissue in the body and combines high hardness with resilience, said Elia Beniash, Ph.D., associate professor of oral biology, Pitt School of Dental Medicine. Those properties are the result of its unique structure, which resembles a complex ceramic microfabric.

"Enamel starts out as an organic gel that has tiny mineral crystals suspended in it," he said. "In our project, we recreated the early steps of enamel formation so that we could better understand the role of a key regulatory protein called amelogenin in this process."

Dr. Beniash and his team found that amelogenin molecules self-assemble in stepwise fashion via small oligomeric building blocks into higher-order structures. Just like connecting a series of dots, amelogenin assemblies stabilize tiny particles of calcium phosphate, which is the main mineral phase in enamel and bone, and organize them into parallel arrays. Once arranged, the nanoparticles fuse and crystallize to build the highly mineralized enamel structure.

"The relationship isn't clear to us yet, but it seems that amelogenin's ability to self-assemble is critical to its role in guiding the dots, called prenucleation clusters, into this complex, highly organized structure," Dr. Beniash said. "This gives us insight into ways that we might use biologic molecules to help us build nanoscale minerals into novel materials, which is important for restorative dentistry and many other technologies."

Dental enamel is the most mineralized tissue in the body and combines high hardness with resilience, said Elia Beniash, Ph.D., associate professor of oral biology, Pitt School of Dental Medicine. Those properties are the result of its unique structure, which resembles a complex ceramic microfabric.

"Enamel starts out as an organic gel that has tiny mineral crystals suspended in it," he said. "In our project, we recreated the early steps of enamel formation so that we could better understand the role of a key regulatory protein called amelogenin in this process."

Dr. Beniash and his team found that amelogenin molecules self-assemble in stepwise fashion via small oligomeric building blocks into higher-order structures. Just like connecting a series of dots, amelogenin assemblies stabilize tiny particles of calcium phosphate, which is the main mineral phase in enamel and bone, and organize them into parallel arrays. Once arranged, the nanoparticles fuse and crystallize to build the highly mineralized enamel structure.

"The relationship isn't clear to us yet, but it seems that amelogenin's ability to self-assemble is critical to its role in guiding the dots, called prenucleation clusters, into this complex, highly organized structure," Dr. Beniash said. "This gives us insight into ways that we might use biologic molecules to help us build nanoscale minerals into novel materials, which is important for restorative dentistry and many other technologies."
Appeals court rules against Obama healthcare law
President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law suffered a setback on Friday when an appeals court ruled that it was unconstitutional to require all Americans to buy insurance or face a penalty.

The U.S. Appeals Court for the 11th Circuit, based in Atlanta, ruled 2 to 1 that Congress exceeded its authority by requiring Americans to buy coverage, but it unanimously reversed a lower court decision that threw out the entire law.

The legality of the individual mandate, a cornerstone of the healthcare law, is widely expected to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. Opponents have argued that without the mandate, which goes into effect in 2014, the entire law falls.

The law, adopted by Congress in 2010 after a bruising battle, is expected to be a major political issue in the 2012 elections as Obama seeks another term. All the major Republican presidential candidates have opposed it.

Obama has championed the individual mandate as a major accomplishment of his presidency and as a way to try to slow the soaring costs of healthcare while expanding coverage to the more than 30 million Americans without it.
Enjoy your day!

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