Free Republic

<p>NEW BEDFORD, Mass. (AP) — A former dentist in Massachusetts has pleaded guilty to Medicaid fraud for using paper clips instead of stainless steel posts in root canals.</p> <p>Michael Clair is scheduled to be sentenced next Monday after pleading guilty last week in New Bedford Superior Court to a variety of charges, including defrauding Medicaid of $130,000 assault and battery, illegally prescribing prescription drugs and witness intimidation.</p>

Robert Lee went into Dr. Stacy Makhnevich’s New York dentist office for a sore tooth, but the year that followed turned into what one Public Citizen senior lawyer called an “unconscionable practice.” The controversy began in 2010, when Lee went into Makhnevich’s office for a scheduled dentist’s appointment. Bleary from pain, Lee claimed he was told he had to sign several papers, including a “Mutual Agreement to Maintain Privacy,” before being treated. The form required Lee to agree not to publish any commentary or write anything disparaging about his experience with Makhnevich. While Lee said he was hesitant to sign...

Walk up to as mirror and flash that Hollywood smile. See those teeth? You probably have no idea how much they tell about you. Because the appearance of those teeth is usually an indicator of how often you see a dentist and how often you do see that enamel driller and puller tells oodles about your behavior -- such as how you’ll probably vote [...] --SNIP-- Oral health, they found, is positively associated with states that voted for Obama for President 2008 –- meaning if you had good teeth, good oral health and went to the dentist when you should...

A 24-year-old Cincinnati father died from a tooth infection this week because he couldn't afford his medication, offering a sobering reminder of the importance of oral health and the number of people without access to dental or health care. According to NBC affiliate WLWT, Kyle Willis' wisdom tooth started hurting two weeks ago. When dentists told him it needed to be pulled, he decided to forgo the procedure, because he was unemployed and had no health insurance. When his face started swelling and his head began to ache, Willis went to the emergency room, where he received prescriptions for antibiotics...

Back in April I wrote about a person near and dear to me — yes, my husband — who needed two new crowns for $3,442. I published his experience in a post, Is Your Dentist Ripping You Off? Dentists howled in protest at the provocative headline, though most agreed with the content of the story.

Elderly woman, dentist fight over dentures At one point, 85-year-old tried to climb out window to escape, affidavit says

Check out this bizarre story from CNN, of a woman who went into the dentist to get some work done, and left her appointment with an accent.

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (Nov. 20, 2010) — Military spouses routinely have difficulty maintaining a career due to frequent moves. In an attempt to address that problem, a program run jointly by the Fort Leonard Wood American Red Cross chapter and the Army’s DENTAC dental program provides dental assistant training, a course that would ordinarily cost several thousand dollars, free of charge to military spouses and retiree spouses. Dental assistants can often be in high demand and frequently can find employment rapidly at military or civilian dental facilities following a military move. Gabriella Gallagher of the Red Cross said the...

Did you think that the outrage over airport fondling and nudie scanners was some sort of civil liberties thing? Or a populist uprising? Or individuals standing up to government degradations?Then you've been fooled by the libertarian-corporate-dentite conspiracy.The Nation magazine, a liberal publication that typically opposed George W. Bush's NSA snooping on our phone calls, has a new article attacking those who oppose Barack Obama's TSA snooping around our boxer briefs.Here's the headline:TSAstroturf: The Washington Lobbyists and Koch-Funded Libertarians Behind the TSA Scandal And the article only gets dumber from there. The general gist seems to be that the dental lobby...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7otcu2lR8A Day 10 Yesterday, we received some pretty big news! We hinted on our Day 9 blog video that we hoped to have an announcement on today’s video…and guess what! We do! Check it and see! This afternoon, while the kids were playing outside (funny how I just can’t seem to keep them in the house anymore!), I had the opportunity to spend some time really meditating upon what God is doing in our family—and in the lives of the individuals who make it up. The children are deepening their relationships with one another…there is even more talk and laughter...

Chicago dentist William DeJean is a busy man these days, and it has nothing to do with teeth. It all started when he handed over his credit card to pay for a "Hillary 2012" television ad. After the spot ran five times in New Orleans last week, his phone hasn't stopped ringing. "I really feel all my commercial is doing is saying what everybody else was feeling," said DeJean, who estimates that he spent about $5,000 between production and air time. "I think that — even among the Democrats — there is a lot of buyer's remorse as far as...

Open wide: Thanks to a new gel, soon this won't hurt A gel that can help decayed teeth grow back in just weeks may mean an end to fillings. The gel, which is being developed by scientists in France, works by prompting cells in teeth to start multiplying. They then form healthy new tooth tissue that gradually replaces what has been lost to decay. Researchers say in lab studies it took just four weeks to restore teeth back to their original healthy state. The gel contains melanocyte-stimulating hormone, or MSH. We produce this in the pituitary gland, a pea-sized gland...

Gordon Taylor got a surprising answer when he asked for a dentist's daughter's hand in marriage – 'Yes, as long as you get your teeth fixed.' The 32-year-old was told he must have a series of fillings and cosmetic surgery before he could walk down the aisle with Sarah Lewis, 26. Her father, Dr Philip Lewis, even made him wear a 'snap-on smile' cosmetic denture for the wedding in Cowes, the Isle of Wight. 'I didn't mean to neglect my teeth, I guess it was just the lifestyle I was leading,' said Mr Taylor. 'When I met Sarah, I guess...

A Mission Viejo-based lawyer claims to be in possession of a copy of what she says is President Barack Obama's Kenyan birth certificate. Orly Taitz said the document could bring along a speedy resolution to a lawsuit she's handling, challenging Obama's eligibility to serve as the president. That is, even she admits, if it's genuine. The Hawaiian state health director reiterated last week that he'd examined the pertinent documents and that Obama was indeed born there. Over the weekend, Orly Taitz filed a motion in federal court for expedited discovery. Among the pleas, Taitz asks Secretary of State Hillary Clinton...

Stratford (AP) - A Connecticut man has been arrested after he allegedly showed up at a dental office naked. Police said 41-year-old Christopher Hoff of Stratford also was five days late for an appointment Monday when he went to Optimus Dental.SNIPOfficers went to his home, where Hoff told them he'd been sleeping all day. Police took Hoff to the dental office where the receptionist identified him.

Woodland, Calif. (AP) -- A Woodland dentist has been sentenced to six years in prison for fondling female patients. Yolo County Superior Court Judge Stephen Mock imposed the sentence Friday after Mark Anderson made a tearful statement insisting that the victims had misinterpreted his actions. He described his actions as massages given as treatment for a jaw condition.

Some years ago, when I was young and green in judgement, just graduated from college, I moved to Allentown, Pennsylvania, so as to be closer to aunts and uncles and cousins. I myself had been born and raised in Nebraska; the parents and older siblings had been born and raised in Pennsylvania and New York, before moving to Nebraska, a trek for which their families never forgave them. The parents and older siblings took to Nebraska like ducks to water, but I myself had always dreamed of, fantasized about, living among hordes of wonderful caring loving relatives. And so when...

I am always a little late to the game, and judging from the fact that 16 million people have already viewed this video, I must be again. That said, it's really funny. Oh, and spare me the indignation. It's not exploitation, and if it is, who cares? It's really funny. Am I the only one thinking that this is what Obama would look like without the teleprompter? And question number one at his next primetime press conference: "Is This Real Life?" Video after the jump.

The plane that crashed in Butte Montana had Dr.Ching and his family on board. They were headed to Bozeman Montana to ski with friends when they experienced plane trouble and diverted to Butte Airport but never made it. Dr. Ching was my family's Dentist here in Chico California. Prayers please for those in his extended family who are still with us.

1/15/2009 - SOUTHWEST ASIA (AFNS) -- Dental Airmen teamed up with Army veterinarians to give an Air Force working dog a root canal and get her back into the fight Jan. 15 at an air base in Southwest Asia. Airmen of the 386th Expeditionary Medical Group and Soldiers from the 218th Medical Detachment to work on 5-year-old Belgian melinois Kitti who broke her tooth while trying to chew her way out of her kennel during the flight from Ramstein Air Base, Germany. "She doesn't like to be left alone," said Senior Airman Adam Belward, Kitti's handler from the 822nd Security...

Changes in the way dentists are paid mean they effectively have no financial incentive to give appropriate treatment, the Commons Health Select Committee said. Under the new contract, dentists receive an agreed annual sum rather than being paid for each individual treatment. The committee found the number of dentists extracting a decaying tooth rather than carrying out a more complicated procedure had increased. As a result, the volume of more complex work like crowns, bridges and dentures has fallen by 57%. Evidence presented to the committee also suggested that patients were being pushed unnecessarily into the hospital system. A survey...

Mercury in dental amalgams may pose health risks to children, fetuses and pregnant women, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning. The FDA issued a statement, on its website Wednesday, about the potential dangers of dental amalgams. As part of a legal settlement reached Monday, the federal agency has agreed to release a new ruling on the safety of dental amalgams in July 2009, and alert consumers about potential related hazards. Consumer advocacy groups, including Moms Against Mercury, called for a ban on the fillings in the U.S. "Dental amalgams contain mercury, which may have neurotoxic effects on the...

Oral Surgery Goes Awry As Patient Given Anesthesia And Then Left In Building While Employees Lock Up And Leave--- BROOKLYN (CBS) For most, going in to get a wisdom tooth pulled is already a nightmare scenario. So imagine going in to get a wisdom tooth pulled, and then being locked inside the dental office and forgotten by the staff. CBS 2 HD has learned a lot more about these shocking, real-life allegations. Ramona Mercado says she was hysterical after waking up from general anesthesia all alone at the Oral Surgery and Implant Center in Williamsburg. "Terrified, I was hyper ventilating,"...

On This Day In History November 8, 1887 Doc Holliday dies of tuberculosis On this day, Doc Holliday--gunslinger, gambler, and occasional dentist--dies from tuberculosis. Though he was perhaps most famous for his participation in the shootout at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, John Henry "Doc" Holliday earned his bad reputation well before that famous feud. Born in Georgia, Holliday was raised in the tradition of the southern gentleman. He earned his nickname when he graduated from the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery in 1872. However, shortly after embarking on a respectable career as a dentist in Atlanta, he developed...

Dentist's drill bit lodged in patient's sinus cavity By SUE WEIBEZAHL PORTER The (Syracuse, N.Y.) Post-Standard SYRACUSE, N.Y. — A dentist who was dancing to the song "Car Wash" while extracting a patient's tooth lost an inch-long drill bit, which punctured the patient's sinus cavity and came to rest by her eye socket, according to the woman's lawsuit. Brandy Fanning, 31, underwent surgery at a hospital after the dentist, Dr. George Trusty, was unable to retrieve the bit, said Fanning's lawyer, Joseph Cote III. He said Fanning spent three days at the hospital, with a steady drip of intravenous morphine....

SYRACUSE, N.Y. - A dentist was dancing to a song on the radio while drilling on a woman's tooth, and she wound up in the hospital when the drill bit snapped off and lodged near her eye, a lawsuit alleges. Brandy Fanning, 31, said she had to undergo emergency surgery and spent three days in the hospital because of the October 2004 mishap. The federal lawsuit filed last month against Dr. George Trusty seeks US$600,000 for her medical expenses, pain and suffering. Trusty, 57, a dentist at Syracuse Community Health Center, declined to comment, as did Dr. Ruben Cowart, the...

LONDON (AP) — A shortage of National Health Service dentists in England has led some people to pull out their own teeth — or use super glue to stick crowns back on, a study says. Many dentists abandoned Britain's publicly funded health care system after reforms backfired, leaving a growing number of Britons without access to affordable care. "I was not surprised to hear those horror stories," said Celestine Bridgeman, 41, of London. "Trying to find good NHS dentists is like trying to hit the lottery because the service is underfunded." The National Health Service provides care to the vast...

WOODLAND, Calif. - A dentist accused of fondling the breasts of 27 female patients is trying to keep his dental license by arguing that chest massages are an appropriate procedure in certain cases. Mark Anderson's lawyer says dental journals discuss the need to massage the pectoral muscles to treat a common jaw problem. Police say Anderson said during recorded phone calls that he routinely massaged patients' chests to treat temporo-mandibular joint disorder, or TMJ, which causes neck and head pain.

(snip) This academic year, because of a new state law, Sebastian and all other California children in their first year of school must get a dental checkup by May 31. Children will receive notices from their schools about the new requirement, which took effect Jan. 1. Any checkups in the 12 months before the child enters school also fulfill the requirement. "It's a great idea," said Sebastian's mother, Lourdes Contreras of Santa Clara, who said she, 4-year-old Sebastian and his 12-year-old sister have no health insurance despite her working three jobs. "There are a lot of people who don't take...

ADA Distributing Misleading Information on Two Federal Fluoride Reports, Says Fluoride Action Network New York -- In a statement released August 9, 2007, over 600 dentists, physicians, scientists and environmentalists urge Congress to stop water fluoridation until Congressional hearings are conducted. They cite new scientific evidence that fluoridation, long promoted to fight tooth decay, is ineffective and has serious health risks. (http://www.fluorideaction.org/statement.august.2007.html) Signers include a Nobel Prize winner, three members of the prestigious 2006 National Research Council (NRC) panel that reported on fluoride’s toxicology, two officers in the Union representing professionals at EPA headquarters, the President of the International Society...

Opening King Tut's tomb brought to light treasures and curses hidden for thousands of years. One of the lat ter still haunts us -- the curse of King Tut's tooth. Tut, like many teenagers, needed a tooth extraction, in his case, an impacted wisdom tooth. Sadly, ancient Egyptian dentistry was unable to help the boy-pharaoh, as extractions were done only on very loose teeth, by the gentle touch of fingers. Even forceps (pliers) were probably not employed until long after Tut died. Astonishingly, modern dental extraction procedures are still mired in the technology of the an cient world. Recently, I...

The state Supreme Court says a dentist who stuck boar tusks into the mouth of an anesthetized employee/patient, pried her eyes open, and took photographs, was conducting a "business practice" and his insurance company must pay his attorney fees and court costs. That means dentist Robert Woo will get more money from his insurance company than his employee did when she sued him for "outrage, battery, invasion of privacy, false light, public disclosure of private acts, nonpayment of overtime wages, retaliation for requesting payment of overtime wages, medical negligence, lack of informed consent, and negligent infliction of emotional distress." The...

Prankster dentist wins case against insurer27 Jul 2007, 0733 hrs IST,AP OLYMPIA, WASHINGTON: An oral surgeon who played a practical joke on his assistant by implanting fake boar tusks in her mouth while she was under anesthesia was sued for it, but ended up getting a last laugh. Dr. Robert Woo, who is originally from Hong Kong, took photos of her porcine dental work that later made the rounds. The employee, Tina Alberts, felt humiliated and quit, later suing her boss. When Woo's insurance company, Fireman's Fund, would not deal with the lawsuit, Woo settled out of court with...

On This Day In History July 19, 1879: Doc Holliday kills for the first time Doc Holliday commits his first murder, killing a man for shooting up his New Mexico saloon. Despite his formidable reputation as a deadly gunslinger, Doc Holliday only engaged in eight shootouts during his life, and it has only been verified that he killed two men. Still, the smartly dressed ex-dentist from Atlanta had a remarkably fearless attitude toward death and danger, perhaps because he was slowly dying from tuberculosis. In 1879, Holliday settled in Las Vegas, New Mexico, where he opened a saloon with a...

Police: Unlicensed Dentist Operated on Immigrants Last Update:5/2/2007 12:24:51 PM Web Editor: Bernie O'Donnell CARROLLTON, Ga. (AP) -- Authorities have arrested an illegal immigrant on charges that he ran an unlicensed dental practice out of his home in Carrollton. Ernesto Estrado is accused of performing procedures on hundreds of illegal immigrants who were too afraid to go to a licensed dentist. Authorities say the man used pliers, box cutters and etching blades he bought at a hardware store to pull teeth, fill cavities and create dentures. Authorities searched his home and found prescription painkillers, hypodermic needles and a ledger that...

The promise of stem cells may someday help kids say goodbye to the dreaded root canal, scientists report.   A new, less-invasive treatment leaves the soft inner pulp intact, allowing the young tooth's stem cells to continue tooth formation.  "Removing infected tissue by root canal is invasive, and, by doing that, we stop the tooth's continuous maturation process and leave behind a child with a thin eggshell of a tooth that is weak and susceptible to fracture," explained researcher Dr. George T.-J. Huang, an endodontist (root canal specialist) and an associate professor with the University of Maryland's College of Dental Surgery. ...

A dentist has admitted she was "off target" when she punctured a patient's nose with a needle. Polish woman Joanna Chyzy, 34, who now lives in Collin, near Dumfries, was giving evidence to a misconduct hearing relating to her work in Somerset. She admitted perforating the woman's nose but denied failure to obtain consent and failing to stop when the patient showed signs of distress. The hearing before the General Dental Council continues. Ms Chyzy told the hearing about treating the patient in April 2005. "I pulled up her lip, I accept I was off target with the tip of...

Source: Harvard School of Public Health Date: January 17, 2007 Link Found Between Periodontal Disease And Pancreatic Cancer Science Daily — Pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer death in the U.S.; more than 30,000 Americans are expected to die from the disease this year. It is an extremely difficult cancer to treat and little is known about what causes it. One established risk factor in pancreatic cancer is cigarette smoking; other links have been made to obesity, diabetes type 2 and insulin resistance. In a new study, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and...

HUMBLE, Texas -- A mother was killed by the family van being driven by her 12-year-old son. The boy crashed the van through a dental office wall on Tuesday, killing his mother and injuring two others, authorities said. Lisa Lewis was standing outside the Monarch Dental Associates office in Humble, Texas, when she was killed. Officials said Lewis had just finished her dental appointment shortly after 2 p.m. and let her two sons, a 12-year-old boy and his 17-year-old brother, get their van so she would not get wet from the rain, Houston TV station KPRC reported. The mother was...

CHICAGO - State regulators have suspended the license of a dentist whose 5-year-old patient fell into a coma in his office and later died. Dr. Hicham Riba's practices posed an "imminent danger to the public," the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation said Friday. It said Riba failed to properly monitor Diamond Brownridge's blood pressure, pulse and respiration during her treatment Sept. 23 at his storefront clinic. The complaint said Riba recorded that Diamond was "alert and responsive" on discharge, although her mother claims to have found her comatose in the dental chair. Diamond died Wednesday at Children's Memorial...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI66CVs-zmE

He claimed he met three of the Sept. 11 hijackers in Shreveport a year before the attacks. Now, that man, Shreveport dentist Dr. David Graham, is dead. His family says he was poisoned more than two years ago. At the time, Graham was trying to publish a manuscript about meeting three middle easterners in Shreveport, men he feared were plotting to bomb Barksdale Air Force Base. Graham wrote that he warned the FBI. Then after Sept. 11, he saw their pictures among the hijackers. Before Graham was poisoned, he was supposed to testify at a deportation hearing against a Pakistani...

AUSTIN, Texas, July 17 (UPI) -- A Texas company has reportedly started freezing stem cells taken from baby teeth pulp tissue in hopes the cells might some day lead to disease treatments. BioEden Inc., which opened for business last week, told the Austin (Texas) American-Statesman, it's betting the science eventually will catch up with its aspirations. "We are absolutely confident this will work," Jeff Johnson, president of Austin's BioEden, told the newspaper. "All indications are this is a wonderful source of stem cells." The company said it expects baby teeth stem cells might eventually be used for bone, teeth nerve...

PALM SPRINGS — For the past few months, anyone willing to sacrifice hygiene for a discount on gold teeth caps could stroll into a nondescript shop on Lake Worth Road, have their grill fitted and be on their way with a mouth full of bling-bling. Some customers got shiny new golden "grills" and led their friends to the business. They were the lucky ones. Other clients of the unlicensed dental shop fronting as a custom jewelry shop in the 3200 block of Lake Worth Road ended up with painful, infected mouths. The amateur dentists, detectives say, cast grills using filthy...

The following is a TRUE story. My mother-in-law lived in a small (population <550) town. Most people worked either in pulp wood industry or the local egg packing plant, so everybody knew everybody else in town. A man who worked with my mother-in-law at the egg plant had bad teeth and one was causing him much pain. He went around for days suffering in pain from his bad tooth. Finally, his co-workers told him to get it pulled or shut the heck up and stay home. It turns out that he was actually AFRAID to go to the dentist, even...

ROCHDALE, England, May 2 — "I snapped it out myself," said William Kelly, 43, describing his most recent dental procedure, the autoextraction of one of his upper teeth. Now it is a jagged black stump, and the pain gnawing at Mr. Kelly's mouth has transferred itself to a different tooth, mottled and rickety, on the other side of his mouth. "I'm in the middle of pulling that one out, too," he said. It is easy to be mean about British teeth. Mike Myers's mouth is a joke in itself in the "Austin Powers" movies. In a "Simpsons" episode, dentalphobic children...

I need prayer for my family. My wife needs an emergency root canal. I lost my job last year and work 2 jobs now but have no benefits. We have tremendous faith but we're up against the wall on how to fund this because of the suddeness of the situation. I seem to be in that income area where I make too much for assistance but not enough in real life for contingenies like this. We lost a lot of stuff the past year but are closer than ever as a family. Not a sensational story but I know there...

California Cavity-Epidemic Study Reveals Fluoridation is Ineffective New York – February 14 -- Fluoridated California communities have huge cavity rates and large dentist-neglected populations, according to a recent California study,1 reports the New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation (NYSCOF). Although dentistry promises steep cavity reductions with fluoride-laced water supplies, that’s not happening in California which is in the midst of a cavity epidemic.2 For example: fluoridated Long Beach children have more cavities (75%) 3 than California state (71%) despite a state-wide fluoridation rate about one-fourth that of Long Beach. California is 27% fluoridated. Los Angeles County is 44% fluoridated,4...

Dentists Are Fluoride Misinformed New York – February 1 -- Bottled water does NOT contribute to tooth decay despite dentists scientifically unverifiable cautions disseminated through the media. Studies actually show the opposite. America’s children are fluoride-overdosed, it’s ruining their teeth and researchers advise cutting back. The Centers for Disease Control reports from 1/3 to 1/2 of U.S. schoolchildren sport dental fluorosis1 – white-spotted, discolored and/or sometimes pitted teeth, caused by fluoride over-ingestion. The Academy of General Dentistry advises against fluoridated water for infant formula or food preparation because many studies show this ups children’s fluorosis risk.2 The U.S. Surgeon General...

A well-liked Chicago family dentist let pimps rent out his Marina Towers condos so hookers could turn tricks there and stayed after hours at his downtown dental office to fix the teeth of battered prostitutes for free, the feds charged Wednesday. Gary Kimmel, 56, allegedly pocketed $400,000 from two pimps from 2002 to 2005 and, in return, let them and prostitutes use about a dozen luxury cars, including Lexus, Mercedes and Corvettes, he allegedly bought for their use. The bizarre charges allege an intermingling of Kimmel's work as a dentist with the prostitutes. Kimmel was indicted in an international prostitution...