I strongly oppose any and all scaling by dental assistants. As a registered dental hygienist with 28 years experience, I feel that expanding the functions of dental assistants to include scaling reduces the importance of the dental hygiene profession.  A patient's oral health has a direct correlation to their overall health. We as dental hygienists have been taught through many hours of course work and studies, how to perform and assess our patient's oral health status. To just think that an assistant can be taught the mechanics of scaling is undermining the dental hygiene education process. The ones that will suffer will be the patients. Do not allow this to pass...it would reduce the standard of dental care in Virginia. Thank you.