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(Elliocot, Maryland) - DNA evidence recently ruled
out the possibility that a child of unknown origin living in Illinois was Sabrina
Aisenberg, a child who disappeared from her family's Florida home in 1997.
Similar evidence also proved that Eli Quick, a boy in foster care in Chicago,
Ill., was not Tristan "Buddy" Myers, a child missing since 2000.
Those headlines stress the importance of properly identifying missing or abducted
children, but how many parents have DNA records of their children in case the
unthinkable happens?
This year, as part of their annual "Smiles
for Life" campaign, participating Crown Council dentists nationwide will
offer Toothprints®, an innovative new child identification method developed
by a pediatric dentist. Smiles for Life is the children's charity campaign
of the Crown Council, an alliance of leading-edge dentists in North America.
Each year over a four-month period, Crown Council dentists participating in
the Smiles for Life campaign offer teeth whitening at less than their normal
fee and donate 100 percent of the cost to children's charities across the United
States and Canada, Now, parents receiving teeth whitening during the campaign
will be able to have their children "Toothprinted," also, free of
charge.
"We hope no parent ever has the need to use
it, but it's important to have adequate identification records for your children," explained
Greg Anderson, director of the Crown Council. "Crown Council dentists
are excited to bring this important service to their communities."
Toothprints is a thermoplastic wafer that dental
professionals can use to record a child's individual tooth characteristics.
Samples of the child's DNA and scent contained in saliva are also captured
by Toothprints. Parents keep the Toothprints as a powerful identification tool
to be used in the event that their child is lost or abducted. Ideally, Toothprints
bite impressions should be made each year, but experts recommend that, at the
very least, children receive impressions at age three, after all primary teeth
have erupted, at seven, after the first permanent molars have erupted, and
at 12, after all permanent teeth have erupted.
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