Dr. Katrina Cornish examines Guayule seedlings while at USDA

From the American Dental Association: FDA issues market clearance for new form of latex glove

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared for marketing a patient examination glove made from a new form of natural rubber latex, the first approval of a device derived from a desert plant native to the Southwestern United States. The FDA regulates medical-dental devices.

“This approval has the potential to make a significant difference to both the general public and the medical community at large,” said Daniel Schultz, M.D., director of FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health. “Gloves made from guayule latex may prove to be a safer alternative for some people with sensitivity to traditional latex. And yet they will not sacrifice the desirable properties of traditional latex such as flexibility and strength.”

American Dental Association latex allergy notices for the profession and patients are posted at www.ada.org under Oral Health Topics. The ADA Web site also includes information on hand hygiene and glove use and skin care and lotion use with latex gloves. “Some dental healthcare workers have developed hypersensitivity to proteins derived from natural rubber latex used in certain medical and dental devices, including examination and surgical gloves,” says an ada.org notice on personal protective equipment. “These workers should use PPE made of an alternative material.” Patients are encouraged to advise the dental office staff “if you have had a prior allergic reaction to latex-containing objects.”

The FDA-approved product, the Yulex Patient Examination Glove, is derived from the guayule bush, a desert plant native to the Southwest. The Yulex Corp., Maricopa, Ariz., said in a press release that examination gloves made with patented Yulex natural rubber, and cleared by the FDA, do not contain proteins associated with allergic reactions to latex products. Traditional latex gloves are made from the milky sap of a rubber tree.

Flap has been fortunate that he has never experienced (first hand – sorry for the bad pun) a latex allergy to gloves. But, I have seen it for others, including dentists, assistants, hygienists and patients. The use of other glove substitutes do not provide the snugness of fit like latex.

Flap is looking forward to the distribution of this product. But, will they be able to ramp up production to satisfy demand?

The website for the Yulex Corporation is here.

After the removal of an outer layer of bones around the jaw, the dissection shows blood vessels and sensory nerves to the lower teeth and chin. The process was slow, in part because the Kodachrome film had to be sent to Kodak in Rochester, N.Y., to be developed. Mr. Gruber had to check that the photos came out satisfactorily before Dr. Basset could proceed with his dissection. Photo courtesy of New York Times

This amazing and wonderful work on human anatomy in three dimensions will soon be online thanks to Stanford University.

Dr. David L. Bassett, was an expert in anatomy and dissection at the University of Washington. For more than 17 years, he was engaged in creating what has been called the most painstaking and detailed set of images of the human body, inside and out, ever produced. In 3-D.

Working closely with William Gruber, the inventor of the View-Master, the three-dimensional viewing system that GAF Corporation popularized as a toy in the 1960s, Dr. Bassett created the 25-volume “Stereoscopic Atlas of Human Anatomy” in 1962. It included some 1,500 pairs of slides, along with line drawings that made the details more discernible. The paired slides could be examined with a View-Master, making the chest cavity look cavernous, and making details of structure and tissue stand out unforgettably.

The atlas was an immediate success and the images became an important resource for medical students, even more so as schools have de-emphasized gross anatomy and cadaver work. But the atlas eventually went out of publication in the 1960s.

Thanks to Stanford University’s school of medicine, however, the work will soon be available to the world. The school is bringing the images online, (See a sampling.). The school has also worked with eHuman, a company in Silicon Valley that hopes to charge students and the curious for access to the trove. Rolling a computer mouse over an image at the eHuman site will highlight anatomical details, and bring up the line drawings from the atlas. So far access to the head and neck collection is $8 a month. Nothing else is online yet.

The Bassett Collection on Flickr is here.

Access to The Bassett Online anatomical collection can be purchased here. This isa must purchase for dental students, researchers and clinicians alike.

The masseter muscle of mastication reflected back to expose the jawbone (mandible) and the related vessels, nerves and muscles.