Defining moments

Abstract

In a scene near the beginning of the classic 1960s film The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman's young character Benjamin Braddock is taken to one side by a family friend and given a single word of apparently worldly wisdom 'plastics'. It is played very seriously, which is what makes it so deliciously absurd, but it was undoubtedly the sort of careers guidance that was handed out at that time in the anticipation that plastics were the future. And so it turned out to be; where would we be without them?As with the substance itself in its countless forms the word plastic has many uses and connotations too, not all of them very flattering. We refer to credit card funds as plastic money, implying that it is not quite real. We use it as a somewhat disparaging adjective for something (or somebody) that does not quite match our standards or tastes and we infer that at best it will be a transitory or temporary solution to whatever problem we are trying to solve. A plastic one will do for the meanwhile.We are also guilty of using the word somewhat loosely in clinical dentistry. For example, all restorative materials can be described as plastic because of the requirement we have of them to be malleable to enable placement in a cavity or on a tooth surface. So, slightly bewilderingly in view of the ongoing debates, amalgam is technically also a plastic material in that it has inherent plasticity. More usually we think of plastics as nonamalgam restoratives; the composites, glass ionomers, compomers and other resin variants. Then again, we also use the term to describe the instruments we manipulate in placing and shaping the materials 'please pass me the flat plastic'. Very confusing. DENTAL PLASTICS IN THE ENVIRONMENTThe subject is of relevance because we need to be vigilant about the materials we are using in the light of the new Minamata Convention, as touched upon in a recent editorial. While breathing a collective sigh of relief that amalgam has not been banned but is rather being 'phased down', the dental profession has been given some time to possibly develop new materials and to ensure that the other materials that we are currently using are also safe environmentally. This is important because the charge against mercury in amalgam fillings and the impetus to reduce and then eliminate our reliance on it is based on environmental considerations.Coming to the aid of the cause is a welcome announcement from the Shirley Glasston Hughes (SGH) Trust Fund which is inviting tenders for a research of grant of up to £200,000 (in real not plastic money) for projects which will investigate the question 'Do dental restorative materials containing plastics act as environmental pollutants?' Bids for the funding must come from teams led by a primary care dentist and research proposals have to be received by 29 April 2013. Full details can be found on www.bda.org/curiousabout. Applications will be assessed by a panel of international experts, with the winning bid expected to be announced in September.The topic was selected by dentists and denta...