Dentists -
Tooth Whitening Treatments
British
dentists have been warned that they face criminal
prosecution under EU law if they use
tooth-whitening treatments to give their patients
hollywood smiles. The Department of Trade and
Industry says that the nation's most common
tooth-whitening procedure - thought to have been
used by Britney Spears, Catherine Zeta Jones,
Julia Roberts, Elizabeth Hurley, Tom Cruise and
even Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the
Exchequer - is illegal under EU rules governing
the supply of hydrogen peroxide bleach. Dentists
have been warned they face six months in jail or
a £5,000 fine if they offer the treatment, which
involves applying bleaching gel to the surface of
the teeth using an individually-fashioned mouth
mould. A 30-minute whitening session, in which
laser light is used to enhance results, can cost
up to £1,000 and some 100,000 people in Britain
are thought to have used the treatment.
The warning also applies to at-home treatments,
which cost about £200, in which the dentist
provides the bleaching gel and prepares a mould
that the patient can wear over their teeth for an
hour or so each day over three to four weeks.
British dentists claim that they are being
singled out over a perfectly safe treatment which
is legal in America and tolerated elsewhere
across Europe. Mervyn Druian, a specialist in
cosmetic dentistry and a spokesman for the
British Dental Association, said, "The whole
thing is ridiculous. Tooth whitening is effective
and it means that, for a one-off sum without any
major intervention, the patient can walk out of
the surgery looking and feeling better."
George Rodgers, a dentist in Wigan who has
received a warning letter from trading standards
officers about the treatment, said, "It is
immoral of this government to make illegal by
petty bureaucracy a treatment which is safe and
far less destructive than its alternatives,
especially as this tooth whitening is available
in America and across Europe." The legal
issue lies in an EU ruling that classifies tooth
whitening products as "cosmetic" and
makes it illegal to supply hydrogen peroxide
bleach for them at greater than 0.1 per cent
concentration. Kits prepared by dentists for use
by patients at home can contain 40 times that
concentration: the faster-acting treatments given
in surgeries use hydrogen peroxide in
concentrations as high as 38 per cent.
Although the supply of concentrated tooth
whitening bleach has technically been illegal for
several years, the rules are enforced by local
authorities, who have never previously applied
them to dentists. Following an investigation into
a supply company, however, trading standards
officers began writing to dentists in Wigan
warning them that they also faced investigation
and possible charges. More local authorities are
now expected to follow suit. Alan Blundell, the
chief trading standards officer for Wigan, said
that officers had to be "sensitive" to
whether a prosecution would be considered
reasonable but they nevertheless had an
obligation to inform dentists of the law.
His letter also warned dentists that they could
end up in difficulties if a patient reacted badly
to the treatment as the client could claim that
they had not been given goods that were "fit
for their purpose". The Dental Defence Union
has also warned dentists that they may have
problems claiming that their patients have
properly consented to a treatment if it is deemed
illegal. The EU's scientific committee for
cosmetics and non-food products has recommended
that the permitted level of hydrogen peroxide be
raised to 6 per cent, however it is not known
when this recommendation will become law. Reports
that Gordon Brown had undergone tooth-whitening
treatment surfaced last year as colleagues
noticed a brightening of his smile. A Treasury
spokesman said, "We are not in the habit of
commenting on this sort of thing".
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