Swordmaker, if memory serves you were in dentistry. Have you heard anything about this?
Virginia, wonder if some middle easterner brought back some camel spider disease?
Couldn’t be the mercury fillings- Our very own US FDA says it’s safe!
Some disagree.
https://www.colgate.com/en-us/oral-health/procedures/fillings/dental-amalgam-a-health-risk
Sloppy standards for mixing or working with toxic agents? No air conditioning or air exchange?
That is weird. My Hub was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis in April, 2017. He started out in welding but quit in 1968 and began a career in law enforcement. He retired in 2010 and smoked but had quit for about 5 years when diagnosis was made. He contributed his shortness of breath to meds he was taking. WRONG. Anyway he received 2 new lungs in December and thanks be to God and the prayers of many on his behalf for that. Doctors told him their working on GERD as a possible cause. No telling.
Dentists also have one of the highest suicide rates of any occupation. For one thing, you have to learn as much as a medical school graduate which often means high debts to get through college then dental school followed by a job where most people are not happy to see you and think you charge too much. Once you’ve established your practice, there is no higher professional level to aspire to. You’re just a D.D.S. for the next 40 years of your life, sticking your mitts in people’s mouths and lecturing them about their poor hygiene habits.
Could it be the new composites that fill the room with dust when hit by the dental drills?
Somthing like silica can cause fibrosis when it is inhaled. It’s shape causes it to anchor and remain in the lung, doing its damage which results in scarring, hence the fibrosis. Scar tissue doesn’t pass Ox. Dentist have a tiny sandblasted but I have no idea what abrasive they use. At any rate it takes a lot of dust to bring about fibrosis. Can’t imagine where it coming from.
***One questionnaire given to a living IPF patient before he died revealed that he cleaned and polished dental equipment and prepared amalgams and impressions without respiratory protection, the CDC study reported. Some of the chemicals used in these processes are potentially toxic to the respiratory system, the CDC reported. It is not known whether this behavior was a pattern with others that had the disease.***
My wife has this. On oxygen now. She never worked around any of these chemicals. Her father died of the same, and he also never worked around such chemicals. Asbestos in air conditioning, and he smoked a lot in his youth.
Idiopathic, in this case, might mean that there is no *single* known cause of the disease. But this might mean that there are *several* causes, that work in concert.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulmonary_fibrosis
Study a larger group and watch how the numbers magically adjust.
Well, perhaps the dentist here in North Louisiana are using this possible exposure as a reason to work only four days per week. Almost impossible to find a dentist that works on Fridays. They can’t claim that their education costs and overhead expenses were/are to high. They can meet their needs on four days pay and still pay their help a living wage.
How can they pull this three day weekend bit off so successfully? Simple, the availability of dental insurance. Provides them with built-in price fixing and they don’t have to hold secret meetings to succeed. Also raises the price of dental care for us because there is no hint of competition.