Editorial: Patients need answers, help for their pain

Friday, Jan. 2, 1998 | 10:21 a.m.

Surgery is often recommended to replace these joints with artificial ones, but most people who suffer TMD say their pain and suffering never really subsides.

In the 1980s, a company out of Houston called Vitek Corp. manufactured TMJ implants composed of polyester fiber and Teflon. Throughout the 1980s, patients complained not only of pain in their jaws, but of immune system problems from these implants.

The Food and Drug Administration recalled Vitek's implants in 1990, when it learned that they were disintegrating and embedding particles in bone and soft tissue.

The FDA immediately called a safety alert and began notifying oral surgeons and professional dental organizations about the recall. However, many patients nationwide were never informed of the recall until years later, and have thus developed severe health problems.

One such patient is Vietnam veteran Richard Ward of Las Vegas, whose jaws have been eaten away by particles. He also has lost sight in his left eye and developed cirrhosis of the liver. He takes morphine every day in an attempt to kill his pain.

Ward didn't find out about the Vitek recall until 1994. Surprisingly, his dental records at the Veterans Administration in Las Vegas don't show that he was treated there from 1990 to the end of 1993.

Unbelievable?

Not if you ask Terrie Crowley of the TMJ Association in Milwaukee. She says former Vitek patients' dental records across the country, including in the civilian population, have either been altered or turned up missing.

Crowley also points out that Vitek filed for bankruptcy and its owner has fled the country.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., recently expressed interest in conducting a congressional hearing to determine why Vitek escaped unscathed and how communications between the dental community and patients fell apart. We applaud Reid's interest and sincere concern on the issue.