Cent4dent Blog

To: Dr Markus, Melissa and the great staff at The Centre For Dentistry. I want to thank you so much for detecting the white lesion under my tongue last Tuesday while cleaning my teeth. I know in the past I have never been one to be very punctual as to my six month appointments but for some reason this time, with help and reminders from your staff, I did come in for my appointment on time. Six months ago you introduced me to a liquid screening cancer test, which was optional and not covered by insurance. I accepted and the results were negative. This time Melissa detected a white patch under my tongue while performing her normal cleaning and inspecting. Additional procedures were followed which concluded a very high chance of tongue cancer.

To say the least, I was in shock. I am 62, never been in a hospital, never been sick, have not missed a day of work in 20 years, travel the world and work 70 hours a week. I was at a loss as to what to do. Dr Markus in his always professional manner, directed and counseled me with several phone calls that evening.

I thank you all very very much for doing a great job, detecting the problem and your counsel.

I think I will start having my normal checkups every four months instead of six.

Just as an update, as of today and the process that I am following: I have a friend and a long time business associate at Reed Smith, a law firm in Philadelphia. She is a double breast cancer survivor and continues to doctor today with great success at Penn Medicine. Called her within an hour of getting home, she called Dr David Mintzer, Chief, Section Head of Hematology-Oncology, Penn Medicine, he reviewed the situation and referred me to Jason G Newman, MD also at Penn Medicine. Met with Dr Newman this morning for 45 minutes, followed by a biopsy. His initial feel is that it may or may not be cancer but an unusual lesion. I have a follow up appointment next Monday for the biopsy results. If not cancerous or if it is pre-cancerous he will operate in the office. If it is cancer, he will schedule an operation within a week for its removal. Dr Newman seems very confident that the situation has been caught early and can be resolved within a short period of time without any personal issues or consequences.

Obviously the solution to what could have had dire consequences was brought to light by your great staff. Kathy and I can not thank you enough.

Will keep you updated.

Harry

Another article about the end of the use of mercury fillings, if the FDA does its due diligence. If you want to learn more, visit the mercury links pages of our website.

By Fred Tasker
McClatchy Newspapers
Posted: 01/26/2011 01:00:00 AM PST

Naidelys Montoya didn’t wait for her son’s baby teeth to fall out. She took the boy to an oral surgeon to have two loose ones extracted.

“He was a bit scared,” said Montoya, of Hialeah, Fla. “He’s not that brave.”

The dentist shipped the teeth in a temperature-controlled steel container to a lab in Massachusetts, where their stem cells will be spun out, frozen to more than 100 degrees below zero and stored — in case her son, Raul Estrada, 6, might need them for a future illness.

“I believe in this,” Montoya said. “I did it as a precaution against things that could happen.”

Montoya and her son have joined a major new medical movement.

In South Florida and around the world, dentists are extracting baby teeth, wisdom teeth and even healthy adult teeth, and researchers are spinning out stem cells that they believe can be used to regrow lost teeth, someday even to repair damaged bones, hearts, pancreases, muscles and brains.

It could put the Tooth Fairy out of business.

“These are teeth we’ve been discarding as dental waste,” said Dr. Jeffrey Blum, the Miami Beach oral surgeon who pulled Raul’s teeth. “We might as well get some use out of them.”

“I can’t help but feel excitement for their potential use in regenerating different tissues in the human body,” said Dr. Jeremy Mao, director of the Regenerative Medicine Laboratory at Columbia University. Mao also is chief science adviser to StemSave, a New York City company that freezes the stem cells and stores them for later use.

Costly and speculative

There are concerns. It’s expensive, costing $590 upfront plus $100 a year to store the stem cells from up to four teeth for up to 20 years. It’s speculative, with the first FDA-approved practical use of such stem cells years away.

“Every treatment using dental stem cells is still in the clinical testing phase, and won’t be ready for general use for at least five years,” said Art Greco, StemSave’s CEO.

Montoya understands: “Things are evolving so quickly, who knows what they will be able to do in 15 or 20 years?”

Other researchers welcome the new source of stem cells.

“Perhaps it does make sense to save” dental stem cells, said Dr. Joshua Hare, director of the Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute at the University of Miami Medical School, who is not involved with dental stem cells. “Within human adults and children, there are lots of reservoirs of stem cells. We get them from bone marrow; others use umbilical cord blood. It seems teeth are also a good source.”

The National Institutes of Health concluded in 2003 that teeth are a rich source of stem cells. Every child has about 20 baby teeth that fall out between ages 6 and 12. Adolescents have wisdom teeth that often are removed between ages 14 and 25 because they crowd the jaw or grow in crookedly.

Blum and other oral surgeons must extract baby teeth before they fall out naturally, so they still have a blood supply to keep them healthy. He puts them in a temperature-controlled steel container and overnights them to the StemSave facility.

Body’s repair system

Stem cells are the body’s repair system, Hare said. Stem cells beneath the skin are constantly spinning off new skin cells to replace skin that is sloughed off or damaged in daily life. The same is true for hearts, livers, pancreases — except that as the body weakens from age, injury or disease, those stem cells start to lose the ability to keep up and need help. Today, stem cells from bone marrow, blood and now perhaps teeth can be reprogrammed to help those ailing organs.

Also, by using these stem cells, researchers avoid involving human embryonic stem cells, which are controversial because their creation involves destroying human embryos.

The first practical use of dental stem cells probably will be to repair human teeth and jawbones, researchers say. At Boston University’s School of Dental Medicine, researchers have used stem cells from baby and wisdom teeth to generate dental pulp, the soft interior of a tooth, and dentin, its hard white casing.

Now they are inserting the material into a broken human tooth and implanting it into a mouse to access a blood supply. When the technology reaches humans, the pulp material would be injected into a spongy “scaffold” where a tooth has been removed and prompted to grow into a human tooth. It’s at least five years away.

Life-saving stem cells

Across the world, the use of stem cells to heal the human body is exploding. At the University of Miami’s med school, Hare is doing human trials using stem cells from bone marrow to inject around hearts damaged by heart attacks, hoping to regenerate damaged heart tissue.

For years, stem cells from umbilical cord blood have saved the lives of patients with leukemia, lymphoma, multiple myeloma, aplastic anemia, sickle cell and other diseases.

So far, only private banks are storing dental stem cells, although Mao says a public bank would be valuable and appropriate.

The American Dental Association, while cautiously optimistic about the potential of dental stem cells, urges parents considering banking their children’s dental stem cells to consider both the cost and the rarity of use before joining private donation programs.

“That’s the question people have to ask themselves,” Blum said. “Am I saving this for no reason? Is it worth what I’m paying? Essentially, it’s an insurance policy.”

This interesting information brought to you by Dr. Markus of The Centre for Dentistry.

The toughest thing for a cosmetic dentist is to match up one front tooth. Josh Polansky hit another grand slam on this one. Patient had fallen down a flight a steps right before xmas.
Prepped case and started her whitening the rest of the teeth. This has led to her asking me to complete 5 more teeth. 3 down, 2 to go next week.
That picture will be shown later.

I think the thing that most blew me away about this case was the management of the cervical 1/3:

Here is the mid body:

Here is the incisal edge

Can you tell which teeth are veneers?

Hint: I think I’m going to custom scratch #8 a little bit more next time I see her. It’s just a little too perfect.

Stump shade gives it away:

Photography and Ceramics by Josh Polansky, Niche Labs, Cherry Hill, NJ
So of my good friend Barry Polansky, Author of “The Art of the Exam”, and proud father to have exposed his son to apprenticeship under some of the leading ceramists in the world
Steve Markus
The Centre for Dentistry at Haddon
209 White Horse Pike
Haddon Heights, NJ 08035
www.SmileSouthJersey.com
856 SMILE S J

Subject: Why did the chicken cross the road?
What is your opinion?
SARAH PALIN: The chicken crossed the road because gosh-darn it, he’s a maverick!

BARACK OBAMA: The chicken crossed the road because it was time for change! The chicken wanted change!

JOHN MC CAIN: My friends that chicken crossed the road because he recognized the need to engage in cooperation and dialogue with all the chickens on the other side of the road.

HILLARY CLINTON: When I was First Lady, I personally helped that little chicken to cross the road. This experience makes me uniquely qualified to ensure right from Day One that every chicken in this country gets the chance it deserves to cross the road. But then, this really isn’t about me.

GEORGE W. BUSH: We don’t really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or not. The chicken is either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground here.

DICK CHENEY: Where’s my gun?

COLIN POWELL: Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road.

BILL CLINTON: I did not cross the road with that chicken.

AL GORE: I invented the chicken.

JOHN KERRY: Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken’s intentions. I am not for it now, and will remain against it.

AL SHARPTON: Why are all the chickens white? We need some black chickens.

DR. PHIL: The problem we have here is that this chicken won’t realize that he must first deal with the problem on this side of the road before it goes after the problem on the other side of the road. What we need to do is help him realize how stupid he’s acting by not taking on his current problems before adding new problems.

OPRAH: Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross this road so bad. So instead of having the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I’m going to give this chicken a NEW CAR so that he can just drive across the road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN: We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.

NANCY GRACE: That chicken crossed the road because he’s guilty! You can see it in his eyes and the way he walks.

PAT BUCHANAN: To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.

MARTHA STEWART: No one called me to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the Farmer’s Market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.

DR SEUSS: Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed I’ve not been told.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die in the rain, alone.

JERRY FALWELL: Because the chicken was gay! Can’t you people see the plain truth? That’s why they call it the ‘other side.’ Yes, my friends, That chicken is gay. And if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the Liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like ‘the other side.’ That chicken should not be crossing the road. It’s as plain and as simple as that.

GRANDPA: In my day we didn’t ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.

BARBARA WALTERS: Isn’t that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart warming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish it’s lifelong dream of crossing the road.

ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.

JOHN LENNON: Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together, in peace.

BILL GATES: I have just released eChicken2010, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook. Internet Explorer is an integral part of eChicken2010. This new platform is much more stable and will never reboot.

ALBERT EINSTEIN: Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?

COLONEL SANDERS: Did I miss one?

…and the question continues….

DON’T MISS MAESTRO BEN ZANDERS ACCOUNT OF RECOVERING FROM MENIERE’S DISEASE AFTER REMOVAL OF 15 AMALGAM FILLINGS.

Ben Zander’s testimony as filmed by Scott and Patricia of DDV Productions: www.ddvideoproductions@gmail.com

Stephen J.Markus, DMD FACE
www.Cent4Dent.com

After serving less than two years as the Deputy Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Joshua Sharfstein recently announced that he is resigning from his position at the agency to become head of Maryland’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. During his time at the FDA, Sharfstein took some aggressive steps to crack down on unsafe medical devices that were on the market, which some say may have played a role in his ultimately stepping down.
Learn more:

Freya Koss, Leader of Consumers for Dental Choice Comments:
My intuition regarding Sharfstein’s resignation is that he wasn’t willing to continue to kowtow to the bureaucrats at FDA. I believe his efforts were thwarted by Shuren, Hamburg and the politics behind the scenes at FDA. He was handed the original amalgam classification by Hamburg and was ordered to sign it………..that’s my opinion.

I spoke with Josh Sharfstein for 45 minutes during the transparency meetings. He welcomed my comments and suggestions relative to informed consent and the proposed classification, but it became apparent when thhe mucky mucks upstairs became aware of our conversation and his offer to work cooperatively with us, he was forced to back down. His resignation resonates of the dirty deals that take place behind closed doors at FDA.

A few years ago Boyd Haley and members of the IAOMT scientific advisory committee while meeting with FDA officials, Norris Alderson said: FDA couldn’t make a move on the amalgam issue without ADA’s approval. It’s became clear who has been running FDa’s Dental Device Div. under Susan Runner’s tutelage the ADA.

To my way of thinking, we cannot trust Shuren, Hamburg or any of the other FDA honchos involved with this issue to protect the American public.

However, we are garnering great media coverage and continue to do so. If you haven’t seen the videos of the public comments and professional testimony at the FDA hearing. thanks to Dorice and Scott and Trish of DDV Productions, they are available on YouTube:

NEXT WEEK, BEN ZANDER AND ROBERT EVANS ON BOSTON 5 TV

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/index.html

Ben Zander and Dr. Robert Evans will be interviewed by Rondella Richardson on Boston’s ABC TV 5 station, currently scheduled to be aired in Boston on Weds 11:00 NEWS pm ET and Thurs 5:30 – 6:30 news.

The program will also be available on http://www.thebostonchannel.com/index.html should you wish to alert others who aren’t in the Boston area..

The truth is slowly coming out. Even the ADA and its subsidiaries couldn’t quash this story on ABC News.

Be sure to get more information about this and other health issues on our blog, and on our website.

Smiles for Life Initiative with Jaws Youth Foundation for Childhood Obesity

Jaws Youth Foundation and Smiles for Life at Dr. Markus’ office will be working to combat Chlldhood Obesity this year. If you and anyone you know are interested in helping us with this campaign, please notify Dr. Markus at sjmdmd@comcast.net

First lady Michelle Obama launched her “Let’s Move” campaign the second week of February to highlight, and hopefully help remedy the current childhood obesity epidemic.
If you think epidemic sounds a little too dramatic, then consider this: It is estimated that one out of every three children in the United States is obese.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has a simple formula for helping prevent childhood obesity.
It’s 5-2-1-0, and it breaks down like this:
5: Eat five vegetables and fruits a day (the majority of this should be vegetables). I would also add that you limit your fructose consumption from fruits to under 15 grams per day. You can use the table lower on this page to help you determine the fructose content of common fruits.
2: Limit screen time — TV in particular — to 2 hours or less a day. (The AAP says to avoid any screen time for children under the age of 2. Another interesting variation of this comes from Robert Lustig, MD who is a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of California who specializes in weight loss. He integrates this into the next one in that for every minute of screen time (TV or video games) a minute of exercise is required.
1: Do one hour of physical activity a day.
0: Have zero sugar-sweetened drinks This is an easy one that EVERY child would benefit from following.
Additional suggestions are: Be persistent in offering your child new foods, don’t berate your child about his weight, involve him in food preparation, and be a dietary role model.

At the end of the two-day hearing to evaluate the safety of amalgam, FDA’s own scientific panel – including neurologists, toxicologists, epidemiologists, and environmental health specialists – told the agency to stop amalgam use in children, pregnant women, and hypersensitive populations.
After reviewing the available scientific studies and the presentations of researchers, experts, dentists, and injured consumers, the scientists concluded that – contrary to the claims of FDA’s in-house dentist Susan Runner – amalgam is not safe for everybody. According to the panel, FDA’s amalgam risk assessments were not adequate to protect hypersensitive adults, children, and unborn babies. Repeatedly, panel members expressed their concern about amalgam use in children. Pediatric neurologist Dr. Suresh Kotagal of the Mayo Clinic summed it up for the entire panel: “There is really no place for mercury in children.” Other panelists went on to explain that dental mercury is like lead. The panel urged FDA to quickly contraindicate amalgam for these vulnerable populations and insisted that FDA provide consumers with labeling containing clear warnings.
The press heard the scientists loud and clear. According to the well-respected trade publication FDA Webview, the panelists “suggested the agency should ban the device’s use in children and pregnant women.” * Reuters announced that “Use of fillings in kids, pregnant women biggest concern…Enough uncertainty surrounds silver-colored metal dental fillings with mercury that U.S. regulators should add more cautions for dentists and patients, a U.S. advisory panel said.” **

At the end of the hearing, presiding FDA official Anthony Watson, Director of the Division of Dental Devices, announced that FDA would act quickly in response to concerns raised by the panel. But already FDA is ignoring the scientists. FDA’s official summary of the hearings reads like the American Dental Association press release that was issued the day before, simply noting that more research is needed.*** The summary does not even mention the scientists’ vocal cry for contraindications and restrictions to protect vulnerable populations. And even though panelists insisted that FDA has a responsibility to provide clear labeling for consumers, the summary twists their comments to absolve FDA of all responsibility – it claims that the panel only suggested the need for informed consent within the dentist-patient relationship.
We cannot let FDA get away with rewriting history and ignoring the scientists as it has done so many times before. Please write Anthony Watson at anthony.watson@fda.hhs.gov
Tell Mr. Watson of FDA:
• Since FDA’s own panel of scientists advise that amalgam should “definitely not” be implanted in children, pregnant women, and hypersensitive people, how soon will you take action to protect these vulnerable populations from this toxin?

• Since FDA has a duty to tell consumers that amalgam contains mercury that can damage the neurological systems of unborn babies, children, and hypersensitive populations, when does FDA intend to clearly state this warning on its consumer website and in consumer labeling?

• Since Commissioner Hamburg claims FDA is committed to transparency, how does FDA plan to keep the public updated on its progress with regard to the amalgam issue?
Thank you to all who came out to testify at the hearings, participated in the demonstration, and submitted comments to FDA! We’ve gotten this far, let’s keep it up.

– Charlie
Charles G. Brown
National Counsel, Consumers for Dental Choice
President, World Alliance for Mercury-Free Dentistry
316 F St., Suite 210, Washington DC 20002

MY RESPONSE TO MR. WATSON:
To: Watson, Anthony
Subject: FDA Hearings
As one of the presenters before the ADA Hand-picked panel, led by the former editor in chief of the ADA Journal, I am writing to let you know that simply banning fillings in the mouths of pregnant women and childrend does not go far enough. I had already written the ADA (I mean FDA – but it seems on the mercury issue they’re one and the same) in 2008, about this after they questioned me about their plans. The answer I wrote them is attached.

Until there is a way to determine who is “sensitive” to mercury from fillings everyone must be treated as such. Similarly, in 1988 there was a paradigm shift in dentistry where we had to treat all patients as if they had AIDS (universal precautions). We need another paradigm shift now.

When I watched you oversee the hearings, I felt there was promise for change. The murmurings I’m hearing from others who haven’t been able to believe the level of influence-peddling that is downright sinister, is that once again, the FDA will succumb to the ADA lobby. What power do they hold over your institution to be able to make your government agency look so corrupt?

Steve Markus
The Centre for Dentistry at Haddon
209 White Horse Pike
Haddon Heights, NJ 08035
www.SmileSouthJersey.com
856 SMILE S J

HIS RESPONSE TO ME:
Dear Dr. Markus,

All I can say is don’t lose hope. It has only been three weeks. We are still making sense of the panel and what to do within our authority. I have received numerous e-mails regarding the panel and it seems like many people have already come to the conclusion that we have completed our work and nothing else will be done. The truth is, we are not done. Mr. Markus, I am an optimist by nature so I believe we will take some affirmative action. I am also certain that someone will not be happy with our decision. It always seems that there is an unhappy constituent. The e-mails I have been getting all reflect a wide range of possible actions that people believe we ought to take. This begs the complexity of the issue and the need for deliberate approaches to decision-making. Thank you again for your e-mail and have a great day.

Anthony D. Watson, BS, MS, MBA
Director
Division of Anesthesiology, General Hospital, Infection Control, and Dental Devices
Office of Device Evaluation
Center for Devices and Radiological Health
Phone: (301) 796-6296