As a recipient of dental care in the Commonwealth of Virginia, I strongly oppose the reduction of dental standards proposed by this measure.  While many occupations utilitze on-the-job-training, I do not believe the scaling of my teeth should be one of them.  The consequent health hazards to me personally are too great.  I am a firm believer that teeth and the gum line are of utmost concern for routine preventive care.  Bacteria, infection, disease, etc. here rapidly lead to life-threatening conditions.  I so believe this, I just paid an astronomical amount of money to have a decayed tooth removed from my elder horse's mouth.  He is too valuable to (just) me to risk infection in his bloodstream, jawbone, etc.  Not for one nano-second do I believe the dental assistants will be properly trained by the dentists.  This is yet another example of grabbing money over integrity.  And over my health.  I have had the misfortune of suffering through the dentist cleaning my teeth when the hygienist was out.  Not on your life do I believe dental assistants will be properly trained.  Nor on mine.