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.

Image by Neon Tommy via flickr
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It is likely that three patients and two volunteers contracted hepatitis B at a large free dental clinic held in 2009 in Berkeley County, W.V., according to investigators.
Investigators documented problems with infection control at the large Mission of Mercy clinic, held at a school gymnasium. But they were unable to definitively link those breaches with the five infections, or to determine exactly how the patients and volunteers were infected. They have shared their conclusions in the October issue of the Journal of the American Dental Association.
The news of the cluster of hepatitis B infections among attendees at the West Virginia clinic attracted wide attention in 2010, after health officials sent out letters notifying hundreds of clinic patients and volunteers that they might have been exposed. The highly infectious hepatitis B virus can lead to serious liver damage. Continue reading →
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.