I'll tell you one thing that may motivate dentists. My dental insurance pays $37 for the oral cancer screening. Not bad for 3 minutes work x's how many patients? My prosthodontis charges for it, my periodontist does not, but does it anyway.

I for one had never heard of oral cancer before I had it, other than lip cancer from smoking a pipe. I think one of the reasons this disease is so ignored is that it, like alcoholism, is associated with negative behavior. I even had the guy in the next cube state 'anyone who smokes or drinks deserves to get cancer'. That was after the second time I had cancer. I asked him if that applied only to me or his best buddies on the staff who were still smoking. I think pointing out that 25% of these cancers are not caused by these controllable behaviors might help our cause at least in research. There is certainly no reaon why the dental community shouldn't be looking for this disease at least once a year.

I'm curious as to what journal/magazine this is going in. Keep up the good work and keep tossing those rocks. Maybe some of those dense heads will finally listen.

Eileen