The forbearance of the American Dental Association (ADA) appears to be over. In the past, it has given its Seal of Acceptance to some of the products that bleach teeth, but the organization has become more and more uneasy in recent years at the sudden rise of clinics that administer such products to people in malls or salons. Given that most practitioners in these locations actually have no professional dental training, the ADA has finally petitioned the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to set up some regulations for whitening products and how they are used.
The proliferation of these unlicensed teeth bleaching clinics has of course been fuelled by people’s desire to save money. Rather than pay large dental bills, they would rather pay less but still have their procedure done in a more clinical atmosphere. The owners of the mall clinics or salons claim that they are not in fact doing dental work, which would require training and a license. They don’t even put their own hands in their clients’ mouths. Instead, they consider their teeth whitening procedures to be merely cosmetic work. And doing cosmetic treatments does not require a license.
The question of whether the claim that any teeth whitening system used in the salons or clinics could be described as merely “cosmetic” depends in part on the chemicals it contains. According to the ADA, the types of bleaching agents used to bleach teeth in dental offices can cause damage to gums and other soft tissue, and even to the teeth themselves if applied improperly. For this reason, the organization has petitioned the FDA to restrict the use of these whitening agents solely to professional dentists.
In the ADA’s November 20, 2009 press release, the organization mentions the lack of any guarantee of professional qualifications or the safety of the whitening systems used in malls and salons. The clear goal of the association’s petition is to shut down these sorts of mall clinics, with their unlicensed practitioners, so people can bleach teeth in a more supervised setting among trained personnel. However, it’s not clear from the press release whether the ADA now wants to restrict the sale of over-the-counter whitening kits as well. It will be interesting to see if it’s really possible, at this juncture, for the association to shut down what has become a billion dollar industry.
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