About Mary Otto
Mary Otto, a Washington, D.C.-based freelancer, is AHCJ's topic leader on oral health and the author of "Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America." She can be reached at mary@healthjournalism.org.

Photo: Heidi de Marco/KHNDental hygienist Gita Aminloo (left) and assistant Shirin Tavakolinia clean Devon Rising’s teeth. Rising, 42, who is mentally disabled and blind, can’t easily get to a dentist’s office, so Aminloo performs the dental cleaning at his residential home.
In stories for California Healthline, Ana B. Ibarra has been following a battle being waged by a cadre of independent practice dental hygienists who claim that state actions are forcing them to give up their most vulnerable patients.
At a residential care facility in Rancho Cucamonga last year, Ibarra described one of those hygienists at work.
Gita Aminloo was singing “Itsy Bitsy Spider,” the classic children’s song, to calm 42-year-old Devon Rising, who is blind and mentally disabled, so she could finish cleaning his teeth.
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Mary Otto, a Washington, D.C.-based freelancer, is AHCJ's topic leader on oral health and the author of "Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America." She can be reached at mary@healthjournalism.org.