Just got a heartbreaking call from my local dental lab owner. Going out of business.

[Mika]

Damn. Just damn. A fine person with a small local hand made manufacturing operation. 3 employees plus him. 1st class work. Dedicated. Fair. Hard working. He tried to hang on as long as they could, but backup resources are gone. Although I tried my best, there's simply not enough work (patients who can afford dentistry) to support local manufacturing. The new American-as-apple-pie trend of outsourcing to Chinese slave sweatshops for $30 crowns has destroyed yet another dedicated group of American workers.

What can Brown & FEDEX do for you? Simple. Make slave labor accessible - overnight. Kill your job. Destroy your life's work. :puke:

My practice will now be degraded because of this loss (which will ultimately be someone else's gain).

Real American health care is being nuked right now right in front of us.

VERY depressing.

:( :( :( :(


He wrote this LTTE in response to a pro outsourcing article in a dental journal two months ago.

Walmart is THE model of success?
http://www.jdtunbound.com/unbound-exclusive/september/2009/six-lessons-downturn#comment-726

---

[n2doc]

1. I can hardly wait to read the upcoming horror stories on poisoned crowns from China

Lead? Cadmium? What crap will they "accidentally" substitute in there?

[asjr]

2. Left over drywall.

[Mika]

3. Its already happened (and happening).

To "deal" with this problem, the ADA, the NADL (National Association of Dental Laboratories) and manufacturers are scheming up a way to "certify" Chinese lab work.
These American associations serve greedy ownership/ operators - not the labor force of these labs.

Rapacious capitalism undertaken by the ownership & wealthy classes is destroying our nation.

[raccoon]

5. Do the Chinese make gold crowns? I'm about to replace a holey old porcelain crown

with a gold one.

[Mika]

7. Gold colored crowns. Yes.

A lot of brass. There are a growing number of non-precious
"gold" alloys some manufacturers are developing.

A "gold crown" could be made with no gold, or 1-2%
gold.

If you want a real gold crown you must specify a High Noble
gold crown. The alloy fee will [s]probably[/s] be greater than
the lab fee for the crown.

A reasonable explanation here..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_(dentistry)#Full_gold_crown

[Kdillard]

4. Sad.

[Mika]

9. Devastatingly so.

:hi:

[IndianaGreen]

6. There have been lots of recalls on defective products manufactured in China

a country in which cutting corners has become an art form.

I am sorry about your friend, his business, and his employees.

[Mika]

8. Yes. My lab friend spent 16 years of hard work building a high quality business.

Destroyed in a year.

Its not like he's lost just a job (as bad as that is). He put EVERYTHING into it. His heart. His soul. His savings. His life.

When one does this, one looses a huge part of one's self. I heard a level of unfathomable depression in his voice, not just for his own loss, but for the loss to his dedicated employees that he feels a great weight for their well being. They all made sacrifices too, in order to try to hang onto something they all appreciated. He feels the loss of the years he's spent building friendly business relations - all based on honest to goodness hard work creating quality at great personal toll. He always has bought American equipment (when no one seemed to give a crap about, back then), and American products to manufacture the prosthetic work.

This is shameful. And devastating.

[dflprincess]

10. It will be interesting to see if dentists drop their prices when they start getting

cheap crowns and other products from China.

As painful as it has been to pay over a $1,000 for a crown, I'd rather pay that knowing I'm getting a safe, well made product than to pay less (or worse, the same) and get some iffy item from China.

My one and only prescription drug has gone generic and I worry every week when I take it what might be in it as many generics are made in China.

[vaberella]

11. That's fucked up. n/t

[Vidar]

12. K&R