I know the Va BOD spends hours on determining the best approach to health care in Virginia. Yet, once again the BOD continues to bring up this topic, always surfacing at the ninth hour on allowing dental assistants to scale!  The purpose of the Board of Dentistry is to ensure public safety and maintain optimal oral health for citizens in the Commonwealth. I am pleased with the restorative duties for assistants that have been added to help with the dental team providing care but in no way support assistants scaling.  We all know gum disease goes undiagnosed because dentists fail to probe and measure gum pockets, it seems that these same individuals that will not take the time to diagnose gum disease may likely be the first to delegate this function and the scaling to an assistant.  Keeping this function within the dental hygiene scope of practice makes more sense today due to the links of heart disase, low birth weight babies and strokes in patients that have gum infections whether it be from undiagnosed disease or from non-comprehensive definitive periodontal therapies. In addition, seeing the hygienist gives the patient an opportunity to have preventive education and possibly a chance to uncover additional disease states that may have not been a part of the initial intake.