subject: Teeth Whitening Sparks Debates [print this page] Thinking that teeth whitening would be a pleasant addition to her lineup of eyelash extensions, temporary tattoos and custom makeup, this salon owner started offering teeth whitening in her upscale salon. But after an Alabama Board of Dental Examiners inspector accused her of practicing illegal dentistry, she had to stop.
Her unending lawsuit with the state has waded into the murky area of controlling teeth whitening products that are ever more offered in settings beyond dental clinics like mall stores and salons.
People from the dental commerce claims that this is indubitably a health and safety concern but the rejoinder of those from the beauty parlors are that dentists are only being selfish and brushing them off something that is very lucrative.
I only wanted to bring an innovation to my salon as an owner and businesswoman, she states. And then you get shut down threats even before you got into it, it's really so exasperating, shares this lady as she was drying a customer whose hair she just cut. She believes that this is a cosmetic service and they are on the right side of the law.
But a dentist for 43 years and now consumer adviser and spokesman for the American Dental Association, said it's hard to know whether those bleaching trays or ultraviolet lights are sanitary or safe. People in white coats facilitating the whitening by handing customers the trays to put into their own mouths or adjust the lights over their teeth are seen in many salons now.
This makes the ADA fear that clients will believe that these salon people are actually health care experts. We do not know about what level of sterilization and disinfection is being done. Something unregulated is what you are dealing with.
We can now witness many of the same products mostly home remedies, existing in stores for customers to use by themselves and on themselves as well. In due course we feel this boils down to a consumer rights matter as consumers should have the right to whiten their teeth as they want to just as long as the procedure is safe.
It would usually cost you $100 up to $200 for mall or salon based whitening treatment for teeth using bleaching dishes and UV lights. You'll have to pay four hundred dollars or more when you ask a dentist to do it.
In this court case consisting of the dental board of Alabama against a firm that supplied whitening products to a lot of mall stores and beauty salons, a Montgomery judge has ruled in favor of the dental board after affirming that whitening can only be done by those with a license and this has to be done under strict dental practice and training only.
The matter is being addressed in several states today as we speak, stated the Birmingham attorney who represented the Alabama board in the court case, and this includes Wyoming, Louisiana, Minnesota, North Carolina, and New Mexico, and he further adds that they have reached the same conclusion as what the judge from Alabama did.
Just this past month, the board of dentistry in Tennessee decided that whitening of teeth can only be performed by licensed dentists or hygienists and dental assistants under their direct administration after a slew of complaints involving mall kiosks.
A extremely agitated owner of the salon discussed the situation and could not help but defend himself and his colleagues stating that they are not practicing dentistry at all for don't touch the customers at all and neither have they ever touched their mouths.
Ohio's dental board permitted this right after they have established that while they do have so many concerns about the freeforall use of the supplies, whitening done by those who are nondentists is still safe just as long as they do not touch the person's mouths and that these consumers are the ones who position the light alone and put the material on their own teeth all by themselves too.
It was the consensus of the board that dentistry is far from just providing a person with a tray and teaching him how to apply stuff on his teeth so that it becomes whiter.
An ADA spokesperson shared that such whitening was being done on a cruise about 7 years ago, but that the practice has only taken root in the past four or 5 years.
He states that the American Dental Association has a policy but that's not enforceable in any way at all. Now, dental boards and governments of all states have to learn how to handle this one.
by: John Chambers
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