Editor:
It is found in more than half of California’s children between the ages of six and eight. It caused parents to lose 20 million workdays and children to miss 51 million hours of school. It is a crisis among children. It is oral disease.
As the most prevalent childhood disease, oral disease is completely preventable. With regular dental visits, daily brushing and flossing, the use of fluorides and good nutrition, a large percentage of oral disease could be eliminated. However, many children, especially low-income children, don’t have access to regular dental care.
On a daily basis, clinic staff and leaders see children entering clinics with a mouth full of decaying teeth. It is at clinics, which serve everyone without regard to their ability to pay, that many children often receive first professional dental care, including screening, x-rays, restorative care and prevention services.
The California Primary Care Association is sponsoring legislation that would establish a $15 million grant program to fund dental infrastructure expansion in community clinics. The bill, AB 2591 by Tony Cardenas, D-Sylmar, would allow clinics to buy more dental chairs and renovate or expand their current facilities to meet dental care needs of California’s dentally underserved populations.
We urge support of AB 2591. We can no longer ignore the oral health crisis among children.
Ed Martinez
(Editor’s note: Martinez is executive director of the San Ysidro Health Center.)
Whose Library Is It?
Editor:
As justification for spending $120 million in public funds for a new library the proponents argue that all great cities have wonderful libraries, frequently using New York’s public library as an example. What they don’t realize is that New York’s library was funded from private sources.
Like a child obsessed about getting a particular new toy, the proponents insist, without any rational justification, that we simply have to have a new library. Yet none of the proponents can explain why a fortune in tax dollars should be spent for little more than a Downtown, domed monument except they think it would be “wonderful.”
What’s the actual need? What happened to the vote Mayor Golding promised? Until approved by the taxpayers, no money should be spent on anything just because someone thinks it would be “wonderful.”
Meanwhile, if proponents think it’s “wonderful” to spend $120 million for a Downtown monument, let them build it with their own money, just like in New York.
Edward M. Teyssier
San Diego
