Congressman Elijah E. Cummings Proudly Representing Maryland's 7th District

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 17, 2007

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
Devika Koppikar
(202) 225-4741 or (202) 225-4025
Trudy Perkins
(410) 685-9199 or (202) 225-4741
Mike Christianson
(410) 685-9199 or (202) 225-9876

Washington, D.C. - Congressman Elijah E. Cummings (MD-07), joined by Chairman Henry A. Waxman and Subcommittee Chairman Dennis J. Kucinich, today introduced "Deamonte's Law," a bill to increase children's dental services in community health centers and to train more individuals in pediatric dentistry.  The legislation was introduced in response to the tragic death of a 12-year-old Maryland boy named Deamonte Driver, who died on February 25, 2007, when a tooth infection spread to his brain. 

An Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on May 2, 2007 identified major failures in access to dental services for children on Medicaid, as well as low reimbursement rates for dentistry as a barrier to ensuring adequate access to child dental care.  Today, as a follow-up to that investigation, Reps. Cummings and Kucinich will send letters to the Department of Health and Human Services (DHS) and the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Studies (CMS) asking for documents related to children's dental care in Medicaid.

"A silent epidemic of dental disease is plaguing our children, and our inability to address this issue has had horrifying effects," Congressman Cummings said.  "I simply cannot comprehend how, in this country where we have achieved so much progress, we so thoroughly failed this little boy."

"Deamonte's Law" would address two critical factors contributing to the inability for children like Deamonte to access a dentist by doing the following:

• Ensuring that children have access to dental services in their communities by establishing a five-year, $5 million pilot program to provide funds for dentists, equipment and construction for dental services at community health centers.  The program would also provide support contractual relationships between centers and private practice dentists. 
• Addressing the dentist shortage.  The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that there is a shortage of 4,650 dentists-and pediatric dentists are even scarcer.  "Deamonte's Law" would address this issue by establishing a five-year, $5 million pilot program to enhance training and academic programs in pediatric dentistry, recruit and train dentists to study pediatrics, and provide continuing education for practicing dentists.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that tooth decay in baby teeth has increased 15 percent between 1994 and 2004, among U.S. toddlers and preschoolers.

Tooth decay is the single most common childhood chronic disease, and it disproportionately affects poor and minority children: Eighty percent of dental decay occurs in just 25 percent of children.  Parents are three times more likely to report that their children's dental needs are unmet, when compared with general medical care needs. 

For more information, and to read the letters to CMS and HHS, please visit http://domesticpolicy.oversight.house.gov/.