Tuesday, January 29, 2013

The Morning Drill: January 29, 2013



Chesapeake dentist Derrick Broadaway

Good Morning!

On to today's dentistry and health headlines:

Chesapeake dentist faces judge on felony charges

Felony charges against Chesapeake dentist Derrick Broadaway for writing bad checks to former employees were certified to a grand jury this afternoon.

“It has been stressful,” said former Broadaway Dentistry business manager Andrea Ross, who contacted NewsChannel 3 after she and several others quit when their checks kept bouncing.  By the middle of November, Chesapeake police charged Broadaway with four counts of felony bad checks.

During the preliminary hearing in Chesapeake General District Court, the former employees showed the judge the bounced checks.  Broadaway’s attorney argued that there’s no proof the dentist actually signed the checks, but the judge said the evidence presented in court Monday met a burden of proof for the case to  move forward.

This isn’t Broadaway’s only black eye.  NewsChannel 3′s digging also uncovered his decade long history of violations with the Virginia Board of Dentistry.

State EPA plans to list BPA as harmful

A chemical widely used in plastics and believed to harm fetuses and infants is on track to being declared a reproductive hazard in California, a state agency said Friday.

The move by an arm of the state's Environmental Protection Agency means the compound, bisphenol A, could soon be listed under Proposition 65. Manufacturers would ultimately be required to include warning labels on products with hazardous amounts of BPA.

"We think it's been a long time coming and we're happy that it's happening," said Sarah Janssen, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group.

Since the 1960s, bisphenol A has been present in plastic bottles, the linings of canned food, dental sealants and receipts made of thermal paper.

Berries May Be Healthful, but Some Health Benefits of Berries May Not Make It Past Your Mouth

Research has suggested that compounds that give colorful fruits their rich hues, especially berries, promote health and might even prevent cancer. But for the first time, scientists have exposed extracts from numerous berries high in those pigments to human saliva to see just what kinds of health-promoting substances are likely to survive and be produced in the mouth.

It's too early to name the best berry for health promotion based on this initial work. But the researchers have discovered that two families of pigments that provide berries with their colors, called anthocyanins, are more susceptible to degradation in the mouth than are the other four classes of these pigments.

The Ohio State University study also showed that bacteria living in the mouth are responsible for most of the breakdown of these compounds that occurs in saliva. Researchers are investigating whether it's the berry pigments themselves, or instead the products of their degradation, that actually promote health.

UN Treaty Calls for Dental Amalgam Reduction

An international treaty drafted earlier this month calls for phasing out dental amalgam to reduce mercury pollution.

The Minamata Convention, negotiated under the auspices of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), sets a deadline for banning the manufacture, import, and export of several categories of products containing mercury, such as batteries, light bulbs, and cosmetics, by 2020.

However, it excludes dental amalgam from this list, instead laying out measures that should be used to reduce its use. It does not set a timetable and leaves much to the discretion of individual countries.

Enjoy your morning!

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