Cent4dent Blog

Thursday, December 10, 2009
LETTER TO EDITOR: Tooth unfairy

The Washington Times’ article about the health czar’s conflicts of interest could just as well have been written about Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, who re-entered government through the revolving door of Henry Schein Inc., the nation’s No. 1 dental-products company (“Obama ‘czar’ was highly paid chief of legally troubled firms,” Page 1, Tuesday).

Having made over a million dollars for the light work of being a Schein corporate director, Dr. Hamburg signed an ethics contract pledging not to participate in any activity affecting Schein so long as she held stock or stock options in that company. Then she figuratively tore up the ethics agreement, participating in the rule-making for dental amalgam (so-called silver fillings), even though Schein sells more amalgam than any other company.

After checking her stock option’s value on June 30, Dr. Hamburg insisted on convening a policy meeting on July 1 about the amalgam rule so that she could provide “feedback” to the staff and review the rule’s “next steps.” She then waited until the rule was a fait accompli before purportedly withdrawing (though never actually filing a recusal document). While telling American consumers that she was recused from the issue “based on the requirements of federal ethics laws and the standard of ethical conduct,” Dr. Hamburg reassured her corporate benefactor that her “friendships” at Schein “will outlast the period of my recusal.”

The resulting amalgam rule allows Schein to market amalgam without disclosing the very presence of mercury to consumers, even though this neurotoxin is amalgam’s chief component. It is a 180-degree reversal of Republican Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach’s pro-consumer policy on amalgam, which included a consumer Web site that warned parents and pregnant women that mercury from amalgam can cause neurological damage to children and unborn babies.

With Dr. Hamburg disregarding her ethical obligations to the industry’s benefit, it’s no wonder that right after the rule issued, Schein’s general counsel e-mailed the commissioner that the company is “indebted” to her for her work at FDA.

CHARLES G. BROWN

National counsel

Consumers for Dental Choice

Washington

You folks smoked out Hamburg … So now Sharfstein must answer

Congratulations to a great grassroots movement. Your phoning and your
e-mails smoked out FDA Commissioner Hamburg. We now know Margaret
Hamburg’s secret about recusal from the mercury amalgam rule: She
never formally recused herself at all! No recusal date — despite
holding, and trading, stock options in the nation’s #1 seller of
mercury fillings, Henry Schein Inc.

Here is what FDA’s press office=2 0told ace reporter Jim Dickinson of
FDA Webview:

From: Jim Dickinson September 02, 2009 9:06 PM
To: ‘Charlie Brown’
Subject: RE: Hamburg’s secret – phoning by Eastern time zone is
Thursday

Press Office told me today there is no recusal date because she didn’t
file a document about it. It is not required. She simply did not
participate, which is the same thing as a recusal, I was told.
Basically, they’re saying recusals don’t have to be in writi
ng or filed
formally with anyone.
0A

Jim Dickinson, Editor
FDA Webview20& FDA Review (www.fdaweb.com)

My late mother used to say, “Oh what a tale we weave when first we try
to deceive.” Remember when we said Margaret Hamburg profited after
she took office, and she denied it? Then she admitted to cashing Henry
Schein stock options in July. Now her claim made in July of recusing
herself is unmasked in September. She has no proof she ever recused
herself, only a self-serving claim she did not participate. Her latest
defense goes something like this: I didn’t participate, or if I did I
didn’t participate substantially, or if I participated s ubstantially I
didn’t participate personally, and if I did participate I stopped, and
even though I didn’t recuse myself you should have read my mind and
figured it out!

We are apprising the Inspector General and appropriate Members of
Congress of this latest round of chicanery at FDA.

Drip by drip, the evidence mounts against Margaret Hamburg and her
maneuvering to protect her benefactor Henry Schein Inc., and turn her
back on America’s children and unborn babies.

So now the questions shift to Deputy Commissioner Sharfstein – he needs =0
D
to open up. How did child advocate Josh Sharfstein come to be in
charge of a rule that puts our children and unborn babies at such a
grave risk of permanent neurologic
al harm? And keeps American parents in the dark about the existence of
the mercury?
0A

Please call or write Deputy Commissioner Sharfstein at 301.796-5040, or
JMSharf1@fda.hhs.gov Ask this:

1) With Dr. Hamburg never formally recusing herself, how could Dr.
Sharfstein know he was in charge of the rule-making?

2) On what date did Dr. Sharfstein take charge of the amalgam
rule-making?

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, January 12, 2009
Key concepts: FDA scientists, Obama and Corruption

(NaturalNews) FDA scientists have become so fed up with the criminal behavior of their own administration that they’ve filed a strongly-worded complaint with President-elect Obama, alleging the FDA has been deeply “corrupted and distorted.”

FDA managers, the letter explains, are “placing the American people at risk” by using tactics of intimidation to censor scientific debate within the FDA. This scientific censorship agenda, of course, mirrors the exact same tactics used by the FDA outside the agency against makers of nutritional supplements or herbal products. Intimidation and censorship, it seems, are part of the very fabric of the FDA.

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE
READ ABOUT MY EXPERIENCE IN TESTIFYING BEFORE THE FDA, AND THE FACT THAT THEY STILL HAVEN’T ACTED ON BANNING MERCURY FILLINGS.

THE FOLLOWING IS A PRESS RELEASE I CREATED IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE STORY BROKE ON TV

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Dr. Steve Markus 856 546 0665

ON THE DUMPING
OF BIOHAZARDOUS WASTE
IN TOWNSEND’S INLET

Haddon Heights, NJ – Needless to say, the lead story tonight on Action News about the dentist from Wynwood who wantonly dumped waste from his dental office into the inlet and it eventually caused the Labor Day week and weekend closing of beaches in and around Avalon, NJ has made quite a stir on internet dental discussion boards.

What the media needs to understand is that there are minor monthly costs involved in having dental waste managed by a licensed carrier. I was not surprised to hear neighbors surrounding his home/office extolling what a great dentist this man is. What the public and his patients and neighbors need to understand is that if he was taking this shortcut around legislated mandates, where else was he cutting corners? How long has he made it a practice to dispose of his own waste?

Most dentists cannot escape the scrutiny of trained auxiliaries and flout the law so obviously. Many dentists who practice in small offices, with little or no staff have much greater opportunity to take such shortcuts because there is no professional oversight.

A question that the media, and state DEP and wildlife authorities need to ask is how much mercury from dental amalgam capsules was leaked into this fabulous fishing and wildlife sanctuary? Dentists are required to turn over all unused dental mercury amalgam scrap to a medical waste hauler. As of September 1, 2008, all newly opened dental offices in New Jersey were required to install mercury separators to prevent the contamination of sewage treatment facilities with mercury. All offices in the state will be mandated to retrofit mercury separators by September of 2009. Dentists are not supposed to dump mercury down the drains of their buildings, but continue to do so because there is no oversight. The public also needs to stop being confused by the ADA telling dentists that the mercury is safe in their mouths, but is hazardous to the environment when flushed down the toilet.

I would encourage investigative reporters to begin the process of determining whether (as the initial stories reported) mercury was dumped into the inlet, and how much. A teaspoon of mercury in a one acre lake is sufficient to close it to fishing for a lengthy time. To dismiss this transgression using his wife’s cancer as an excuse is folly.

I am tired of seeing the pollution of our wetlands and beaches. This deliberate act I would wager was not the first time Dr. McFarland has done this, it’s just the first time he was caught. Our profession believes it can police itself, instructing dentists to use “best management practices” to self-regulate their own mercury and biohazardous wastes. Based on what I am told by my auxiliaries who “temp” in other offices, there is a need for better supervision.

Were this man to become the example of what will happen when one ignores the damage to the environment, perhaps others would start thinking twice. This story needs to be more fully investigated, and state authorities need to be questioned as to how many months or years of hazardous waste shipping manifest are missing from this dentist’s log books. This story goes far deeper than the closing of beaches for a few days. Who knows what the impact on society will be if the waters of the inlet and offshore are closed to fishing. I know I wouldn’t eat any freshly caught fish from those waters.

SJM

May 5, 2008
Judge James P. Jones
Chief U.S. District Judge
180 West Main Street
Room 104
Abingdon, VA 24210

Dear Judge Jones:

I read with great interest the information regarding Dr. Shelburne on the website http://www.medicaidruinsgooddentist.com/ and have a number of questions and comments about it.

Foremost in my mind is the fact that the system that provides dental care to the poor in this country is a travesty, and that is why it is so difficult for people working under these government stipends to find a dentist who accepts it. In my own practice, rather than participate with this penurious program, I prefer to select deserving individuals, and render pro bono care to them. Why then, did the prosecutor choose to go after such small potatoes? Aren’t there larger fish to fry?

In 2000, C. Everett Koop, MD, the Surgeon General released a report talking about the deplorable state of dental health in the underserved population. I would never elect to participate in this government run program for many reasons:
• The patients miss a lot of appointments
• The patients have a lot of needs because their diets are improper
• The patients have horrendous home care because parents don’t emphasize the importance thereof
• The payment is typically about ten cents on the dollar for treatment we would deliver in our office.
• The children tend to be very difficult to work on because they are not being treated in a preventive (as opposed to emergency) situation.

So, I would ask you Judge, if the judicial system told you that any case where there is going to be a public defender, and a defendant who really needs to be shackled to behave was going to cause your per diem salary to be decimated, how would you handle it? Would you round your hours up to the next highest number? Would you take sick days, which would be paid at the normal rate? Would you rush through the trial trying to end it as quickly as possible? Would you allow attorneys to produce inflammatory remarks that would cause the jury confusion? Or would you run it as efficiently as possible?

What if several times, the defendant or the PD didn’t show up for court? Could you throw the case out? Remember, you’re not being paid for the time you sit waiting or on no-show days.

I have always read, with interest stories about professionals whose undoing was the participation in the welfare system. I know, in fact, a family whose estates were built using the welfare system. Abuses are rife. What I read on the website about abuses of Dr. Shelburne, unless I’ve been misled are tantamount to padding the bill slightly to extract his pound of sweat, but in my mind a white collar crime of this small amount (I recall $8000 over 5 years) did not build an estate, purchase high-end vehicles or vacation homes, did it?

I also read where the claims reviewer was not working with loupes or illumination to determine whether treatment had been billed, but not performed. I have personally gone through something akin to this with an insurance company that was refusing to authorize needed fillings. You see, there are two ways to diagnose the need for decay:
Visual examination
Tactile examination (today we use a laser, not a hooked explorer to find decay)

Insurance companies don’t want to hear this. They are in business to hold onto their money, and so claims are denied without cause, and the populace is faced with the decision of trusting their doctor, or believing the insurance company is right. Most of our patients understand the adversaries in this, and take the dentists’ side.

I believe that the Constitution calls for a jury of peers to adjudicate a case. My understanding from reading the website was that these were poorly educated jurors, hardly peers. Might I suggest that this case deserves some judicial review, and perhaps a panel of dentists from around the nation (I know many who would volunteer) could come in a review what went on and make recommendations to you so that you might perhaps set aside this verdict. It certainly seems to me that the punishment should fit the crime.

The crime here was what? $8,000 in disputed charges. I think that Big Brother has certainly overstepped. What was the sentence for the toilet manufacturer that was selling parts to the Air Force for ridiculous sums of money? How much money does our government waste on pork barrel projects? I would love to see what the government alleges as their loss in this case. I can certainly tell you that once this letter is widely disseminated the loss will be more intolerable. The welfare recipients will find fewer caring practitioners willing to participate in a program that carries with it a significant disincentive to continue to do so.

I await your reply, and would like your permission to disseminate it to my peers, who are aghast at this travesty (as presented by the friends and family of Dr. Shelburne).

Respectfully,

Steve Markus, DMD FACE