The American Academy of General Dentistry has recently added something to their web site that is a great tool. OCF looked at buying this but was unable to afford the service to add to our web site. But that does not mean that we cannot use it from someone else's...

This link will take you to something called CapWiz which is a zip code driven search engine that allows you to get current contact information for people that you may wish to contact in government, or for us more importantly in the media. http://capwiz.com/agd/home/

I want to contact the medical editor for the LA Times with a story that I think is important, say viruses and oral cancer. I put my zip code in the guide to the media box, sort down the list till I find the LA Times, up comes a list of all their editors and contact information, and at the bottom of the list you can sort by departments - for us, health news, and when I click on that. Under staff, I can click on a name to send an email directly to their medical editor David Olmos. Too simple.

This is a very expensive piece of software that we looked at for the OCF site last year. Too expensive. But there is no reason that you cannot use the AGD site to get to this service to find the right people to get the word out about oral cancer, your own personal story, an oral cancer event, or more. Since we have had people here that are willing to make the contact and write the letters, here is a tool to see that they end up in the right hands. Once you have writeen it, if it is of national interest there is no reason that you can't send it to papers etc. outside your area, by selecting new zip codes to get the contacts.