A dental hygienist is a TRAINED professional that spends many YEARS learning how to diagnose and treat periodontal disease. A dental assistant also is not trained in proper implementation of the SHARP dental hygiene instruments and could easily cause more harm than good to the patients There is no way that a dental assistant can judge whether or not a patient is in need of periodontal treatment and therefore should NOT be allowed to perform scaling procedures.. How would they know if the patient had say a large piece of calculus at the bottom of a deep pocket? If they were to simply remove the calculus at the top of the sulcus, perhaps performing a gingivectomy in the process, the tissue would then heal around the top of the pocket, entrapping the subgingival calculus. This could then cause an infection and abscess in the patient.  

This proposal is preposterous and demeaning to the dental hygiene practice!!

VOTE NO TO DAII AND SCALING BY DENTAL ASSISTANTS!!!!