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Dentistry (vCJD)

I congratulate the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) on securing the debate, and I pay tribute to all the dentists for their co-operation in implementing what is an important measure as part of the Government’s precautionary actions to ensure the reduction of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease infection risks. The hon. Gentleman asked a number of questions on the research, and I hope he will accept that I do not know all the answers, but I would be happy to write to him with details on the procedures used in identifying the risk and other matters. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that in April the chief dental officer and colleagues in devolved Administrations looked carefully into what action needed to be taken. That was informed by the preliminary findings of research that was in progress at the Health Protection Agency, and it was also based on precautionary advice from the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee, which provides the Government with independent expert scientific advice on such matters as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, CJD and scrapie. SEAC issued its position statement on dentistry and endodontic treatment in May 2006. At that point, it concluded that it was unclear whether vCJD infectivity could be transmitted via endodontic files and reamers, but that given the plausibility of such a scenario and the large number of endodontic procedures undertaken annually, it would be prudent to consider restricting these instruments to single use as a precautionary measure. In addition, previous Department of Health advice on minimising the risk of vCJD transmission that was published in 1999 stated that where instruments are difficult to clean, consideration should be given to replacing them with single-use instruments. Owing to the difficulty in decontaminating endodontic files and reamers, making those instruments single use would eliminate any potential risk. A number of dentists were already using single-use instruments for that reason. The SEAC position statement in May 2006 also noted that there were uncertainties in respect of the scientific data and the assumptions underpinning the assessment of risk. The committee therefore recommended:"““Once the research is complete and/or other data become available, the risks should be reassessed””."