You MUST sign in to get credit for CE. Just getting the CE certificate is not enough. if you are audited, its not enough to show the certificate, you must have signed the attendance form for the CE to get the credit.

Thank you, Merci, Gracias! We received $138 from the January meeting raffle, there were 90 attending. As many of you know, the raffle money is used for community outreach. These funds will be donated to an organization that offers their services world wide, including Haiti…..so thank you all for your generous donations!

Don’t forget to sign up for our next dinner meeting on Thursday February 18th at the Dante Club in Fair Oaks. Visit http://www.svdha.org/ce.htm for detailed information. Use this link to go directly to register for the Course: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SVDHAhughes

">Massachusetts is the first state to add toothbrush time to the color-nap-snack-and-play routine of preschools, requiring that all children who eat a meal at day care, or attend for more than four hours, brush their teeth during class and be educated about oral health. The regulations, which went into effect last week, are being praised by some parents and caregivers while causing a tempest in a toothbrush for others, according to schools and chat rooms. Parents who feel strongly about the regulation can opt out, said Sherri Killins, commissioner of the Department of Early Education and Care, which oversees day care centers and established the regulations to help stem dental disease.

According to a 2003 state study, one in four Massachusetts kindergartners have dental disease. “I don’t want someone’s hand in my child’s mouth,” said Sarah Brodsky, a teacher at First Path Day Care in Watertown and mother of 4-month-old Noah. “It’s a little too much” government intervention, Ms. Brodsky added. Staff members use a soft bristle to swab the gums of infants. Like other day care centers statewide, Basic Beginnings is choosing to apply so little toothpaste that it is safe for children to swallow, a practice used in Head Start programs, which mandated tooth brushing in 2006. Caries rates in pre-schoolers is 25%.

Pennsylvania-- Board-regulated practitioner created by Act 51 allows PA hygienists the administration of local anesthesia.

There are a few things that can be done in times of emergencies. Your mobile phone can actually be a lifesaver. Check out the things that you can do with it:
FIRST Subject: Emergency

The Emergency Number worldwide for Mobile is 112. If you find yourself out of the coverage area of your mobile network and there is an emergency, dial 112 and the mobile phone will search any existing network to establish the emergency number for you. Interestingly, this number,112, can be dialed even if the keypad is locked. Try it out.

SECOND Subject: Have you locked your keys in the car?

Does your car have remote keyless entry? This may come in handy someday. Here is a good reason to own a cell phone: if you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are at home, call someone at home on their cell phone from your cell phone. Hold your cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the person at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the mobile phone on their end. Your car will unlock. This saves someone from having to drive your keys to you. Distance is no object. You could be hundreds of miles away, but if you can reach someone who has the other "remote" for your car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk).

Note: It works fine! We tried it out and it unlocked our car over a cell phone!"

THIRD Subject: Hidden Battery Power

Imagine your cell battery is very low on power. To activate, press the keys *3370# and your cell will restart with this reserve power; the instrument will show a 50% increase in battery power. This reserve will get charged when you charge your cell next time.

FOURTH Subject: How to disable a STOLEN mobile phone?

To check your Mobile phone's serial number, key in the following digits on your phone: * #06# and a 15 digit code will appear on the screen. This number is unique to your handset. Write it down and keep it somewhere safe. If your phone gets stolen, you can phone your service provider and give them this code. They will then be able to block your handset; even if the thief changes the SIM card, your phone will be totally useless. You probably won't get your phone back, but at least you know that whoever stole it can't use/sell it either. If everybody does this, there would be no point to people stealing mobile phones.

And Finally.... FIFTH Subject

Cell phone companies are charging us $1.00 to $1.75 or more for 411 information calls when they don't have to. Most of us do not carry a telephone directory in our vehicle, which makes this situation even more of a problem. When you need to use the 411 information option, simply dial: (800) FREE 411, or (800) 373-3411 without incurring any charge at all. Program this into your cell phone now. This is the kind of information people don't mind receiving, so pass it on to your family and friends.

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/household/cellphones.asp

Oral Cancer Visualization Tool Fares Well Clinically

One of the cornerstones of modern medicine is that patients receive a rapid and accurate diagnosis. But for dentists who suspect a patient might have an early oral tumor, a rapid-and-accurate diagnosis is a technologically formidable task, in part, because of an inability to properly visualize the abnormality and gain access to its molecular information that would indicate a tumor.

A team of NIDCR grantees and colleagues has begun to develop new and existing visualization tools to solve this problem. One tool now under development is called the VELscope. It is a simple hand-held device that emits a cone of blue light into the mouth that excites various molecules within the tissue, causing it to absorb the light energy and re-emit it as visible fluorescence.

Because changes in the natural fluorescence of healthy tissue generally are different from those indicative of developing tumor cells, the VELscope allows dentists to watch directly for telltale differences in color.

Following up on their initial work published in early 2006, the scientists report in the November 15 issue of the journal Clinical Cancer Research that the VELscope fared extremely well clinically in characterizing oral tissue biopsies rapidly and accurately. In a study of 20 consecutive patients who arrived at an operating room with histologically confirmed oral cancer, the group found that all tumors had changes in fluorescence that the VELscope detected. Their data were generated from a total of 122 oral mucosa biopsies - 20 from the tumors themselves and 102 from the tumor margins.

Importantly, 19 of the 20 tumors had fluorescence changes that extended in at least one direction beyond the clinically visible tumor. These extensions, which are undetectable with the unaided eye and thus might go untreated, extended from 4 to 25 millimeters from the visible lesion.

"One of the most difficult and contentious issues with respect to treatment of oral cancers involves the decision on the width of clinically normal tissue that should be removed in addition to the tumor," the authors noted. "In an effort to remove occult high-risk field change, surgeons frequently remove an arbitrary 10 mm or more of normal-looking mucosal margin when excising oral cancer, if anatomically possible.

Unfortunately, this approach still fails to completely remove the occult high-risk field changes of many patients, resulting in a high rate of tumor recurrence . . . If a 10-mm clearance of clinical tumor was used arbitrarily in this sample set, half of the 20 tumors in this study would have cancer or dysplasia at the surgical margin, with six cases (30%) showing severe dysplasia or CIS. These six tumors would have a high chance of tumor recurrence because of the inadequate removal."

http://www.nidcr.nih.gov/NewsAndReports/ScienceNewsInBrief/Velscope.htm