Press Releases

The American Dental Association (ADA) and PopCap Games today announced a new tendril of their recently launched "Stop Zombie Mouth" campaign.

The American Dental Association today expressed its support for the Drug Enforcement Administration’s fifth National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day, scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 29, and urged dentists to counsel their patients about how to safely secure and dispose of unused, unwanted or expired pharmaceuticals. 

The American Dental Association (ADA) applauds New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg for shining a spotlight on the issue of frequent and excessive consumption of soda and other sugary beverages which raises the risk of adverse health conditions such as obesity, diabetes and tooth decay.

The American Dental Association (ADA) today praised the Portland, Ore., City Council’s unanimous vote to begin fluoridating the city’s municipal water system before a self-imposed deadline of March 2014.

The American Dental Association (ADA), the leading source of oral health-related information, and PopCap Games, a leading digital games creator and a division of EA, today announced a joint campaign aimed at encouraging good oral health among U.S. children and their parents.

The American Dental Association (ADA) is offering dentists the opportunity to pre-order dental procedure coding books prior to them becoming available in October.  These books have proven popular with ADA members who benefit from members-only discounts.

The ADA New Dentist Committee honored dentists for their achievements at the American Dental Association (ADA) 26th New Dentist Conference in Washington, D.C., this summer.

The Pew Center on the States’ recent report titled “Expanding the Dental Safety Net: A First Look at How Dental Therapists Can Help” follows up and in some ways reinforces the American Dental Association’s own recent economic studies that bring into question the viability of alternative workforce models. The ADA believes that both reports show that dental therapist models would take large financial commitments while returning questionable results. The Pew report noted that the modeling it examined “found modest effects” from deploying dental therapists in existing, fixed-site federally qualified health centers.

In the August issue of The Journal of the American Dental Association, the American Dental Association’s (ADA) Council on Scientific Affairs (CSA) presents an ADA report with recommendations for the safe use of cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) in dental practice.

The American Dental Association (ADA) recently named Dr. John S. Greenspan as the recipient of the 2012 ADA Gold Medal Award for Excellence in Dental Research in recognition of his landmark AIDS research.

The American Dental Association (ADA) is offering a new publication, The ADA Practical Guide to Patients with Medical Conditions, to help dentists deliver safe and coordinated care for patients with chronic medical conditions with a book that provides detailed references, images and expert advice from 25 academicians and clinicians. 

The American Dental Association today released six reports examining the economic viability of three models of so-called "midlevel" dental providers, the Dental Health Aide Therapists (DHATs) currently providing care in Alaska Native territories, the Dental Therapists (DTs), currently working in Minnesota, and the proposed but as yet unrealized Advanced Dental Hygiene Practitioner (ADHP).  The reports raise serious questions about whether these midlevel provider models can sustain themselves economically.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling on the Affordable Care Act upholds the provisions establishing state health insurance exchanges and minimum benefit packages that include pediatric oral health care.  This could expand dental coverage to millions of additional children, many of whom have suffered with untreated dental disease.  The ADA advocated vigorously for increased children’s coverage, including how the “essential dental benefit” for children is defined,  in the months leading up to the law’s passage and is grateful that it remains intact.

The American Dental Association appreciates the mounting media interest in what Surgeon General David Satcher, M.D., famously called a “silent epidemic” of oral disease.  Unfortunately, the situation has improved little since Dr. Satcher wrote those words in 2000.  The needless suffering caused by untreated dental disease that could have been prevented or easily treated in its early stages is unacceptable.  Coverage by PBS’s “Frontline” and other media can increase awareness of this ongoing tragedy and, we hope, the political will to do something about it. 

Although headquartered in Chicago, the ADA has long maintained an office in Washington, DC, to better advocate on behalf of the nation’s oral health and the dental profession’s ability to serve the public.  With the support of professional staff, ADA volunteer leaders work to ensure that Congress and the federal agencies understand the importance of oral health to overall health and wellbeing, and that the laws and rules they make and enforce help to improve the nation’s oral health, or at least do not harm it.

Americans need a serious brush up when it comes to their oral health, according to a new survey from the American Dental Association (ADA) released today during the ADA’s launch of a robust new website, MouthHealth.org, dedicated to improving the oral health of all Americans.

The oldest and largest national dentist society in the world, the American Dental Association (ADA), and the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation (IHTSDO), the leading provider of standardized clinical terminology (SNOMED CT), are pleased to announce that they have entered into a licensing agreement permitting the IHTSDO to incorporate the ADA’s dental diagnostic codes into the IHTSDO’s SNOMED CT medical code set.

“The ADA is pleased that Senator Sanders’ bill recognizes that the barriers that impede too many Americans from attaining good oral health are numerous, and that addressing only one or a few of them will not appreciably improve what all agree is an unacceptable situation.  The ADA has written to Sen. Sanders to express support for  much of the bill and to offer suggestions intended to strengthen some provisions, but also to express the Association’s continued opposition to expending precious federal dollars on unproven and, we believe, unnecessary programs to expand the use of so-called midlevel dental providers. 

The American Dental Association (ADA) is making electronic versions of its popular ADA patient education videos and brochures available for ADA-member dentists to use on their websites through a new resource library called PatientSmart.