It's well known that certain jobs come with risks. Some of these risks may even include contracting serious, deadly diseases due to exposure to certain materials and environments. When you think of these kinds of jobs you’ll usually think of construction workers or chemists who are exposed to dangerous chemicals, like Walter White for you Breaking Bad fans out there. But would you ever once think that dentists had to worry about such a thing? It is true they may not work in the best environment all day, but never to the point where contracting a deadly.
Right? Not according to the CDC’s in their weekly report. Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is the illness. According to an article by CNN, about 894 patients treated with this disease, nine of them were dentists or dental technicians, who were at an average age of 64 at the time of their death. In the article, CNN interviewed Dr. Randall J. Nett, who is the lead author of the study and medical officer with the U.S. Public Health Service, gave another alarming statistic. The number of dentists that were affected by this disease is 23% higher than expected. Meaning many experts and scientists did not consider occupation to be a factor when contracting the deadly lung disease. Now Dr. Nett and several other experts believe occupational exposure could be considered a factor.
One surviving patient that was one of the cases during this study had reported about polishing dental appliances and working on a patient without using a mask or anything to protect them from the fumes being breathed in. According to the same report, dentists or any dental worker who did this would be exposed to silica and other compounds that creates a toxic breathing environment. It is not completely proven but thankfully with this discovery the CDC and Dr. Nett vow to look further into this. Now, this isn’t a major epidemic that dental workers should be worrying about.
To start, many of the dental workers who died from the disease were older, meaning it’s a strong possibility that the proper precautions were never taken when working on a patient. Also, with new technology and new techniques being taught to new dentists, this may impact future cases which can mean those 9 cases were just a fluke. Causes by improper protection when working. Another way to avoid this would be to have proper ventilation throughout the workplace.
One thing is for sure though, this is very intriguing to think about. With this new study, there may be some new precautions dental workers will need to take. And if new cases are reported in the future this could turn into something a little more serious than originally thought. Thankfully, gaining attention from the CDC and with the very informative article published by CNN, people will become more aware of certain risk factors. Fluke or no fluke, this study definitely raises some eyebrows in the medical world. If you want more information about this, go check out the article by CNN, link will be above in one of the paragraphs.
