I adamantly oppose any scaling duties for the Dental Assistant II. As a licenced Dental Hygienist, I am trained to give our patients the best care in preventing any type of periodontal disease (which as recent studies have revealed goes hand in hand with other health care issues including heart disease), without causing harm and trauma to the surrounding soft tissues. Many times, even with class I patients, I have to scale sub-gingivally. Allowing Dental Assistants to supra-gingivally scale would mean important areas would be missed. I am extremely disappointed that professionals would even suggest lower health care quality for their patients due to monetary reasons.