ID Disk on Tooth Fills Information Gap

An Encino dentist has begun installing microscopic disks on children’s teeth to identify the wearer and help locate parents in the event of an emergency.

The disk, about the size of a pinhead, typically contains the individual’s name, address, telephone number, blood type, Social Security number and a brief notation of any medical problems. It is applied with resin to an upper molar and can be viewed in the mouth with the aid of a high-powered magnifying glass.

The product, whose effectiveness has been praised as “valuable” and criticized as “limited,” was developed last spring by police Sgt. Jim Conover and forensic dentist Dr. Jeffrey Maxwell, both of Pekin, Ill. Conover had complained about the difficulty of using dental records to identify living and dead children, some of whom have no fillings or other distinguishable dental work.

Few in California

Conover said about 3,000 of the disks are in use nationwide, but only a handful in California. Four of those have been installed within the past two weeks by Encino dentist Robert Drosman, who said he believes the disks are preferable to fingerprinting and dental charts in identifying the living because they provide instant information.

“The identification is right there,” Drosman said. “With fingerprints and dental charts, you have to correlate the information with the police, FBI, the parents or whoever has the records.”

The disk costs $15, and Drosman has been charging an application fee of $5. Although the product can be used to help identify anyone, Drosman said he has been encouraging its use in children.

With routine maintenance every six months, Conover said that the disk could last indefinitely. However, because the product is so new, its durability has not been tested.

Reaction to the disk among hospital, law-enforcement and coroner’s officials is mixed.

Debra Pine, the administrative nurse in the emergency room at the Medical Center of Tarzana, said she believes the disk would aid hospital personnel in medical emergencies.

“The impact on medical emergencies where we don’t have an identification on the child would be dramatic,” Pine said. “Unless an injury is severely life-threatening, we cannot even treat a child without parental consent. And regardless of the extent of the injury, you always want to let the parent know that their child has entered the hospital.”

Promoting Product

The product, however, is worthless unless someone knows to look for it, said Drosman, who has been visiting hospitals and community groups to notify them that the disk is being used in the area.

One critic of the disk is Lt. Charles Long of the juvenile division of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Although he had not previously heard of the product, Long said, “This sounds like just another organization that possibly can get rich off people getting scared and worrying about their children.”

Long said he is concerned about a growing hysteria over missing children. He sought to clarify some statistics, which he said had not been fully explained by companies trying to exploit parents’ fears for financial gain.

Although the FBI reported that there were 27,240 juveniles missing nationwide as of Feb. 1, Long said that most of those either ran away from home or were snatched away by a parent fighting for custody of the child.

“The statistics are causing undue fright,” Long said. “We’ve seen reports of 50,000 to 100,000 kids vanishing. Right there, that will put people on edge and make them wonder what they should do to protect their child.”

Jay Howell, the executive director of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, confirmed that 50% to 75% of missing children leave home voluntarily, but he said there are currently about 100 unidentified bodies nationwide of individuals under 21.

Product ‘Has Merit’

Howell said that although the disk “would not prevent an abduction,” it could be useful in identifying children who have been recovered but are too young or traumatized to tell authorities who they are.

He said the product has merit and does not fall into the category of high-priced items that clearly are aimed at playing on parents’ fears for profit.

The chief forensic dentist for the Los Angeles County coroner’s office agreed with the Police Department’s Long that the product would have limited use in identifying either adults or children in the county morgue.

“I would welcome something that would make my job easier, but this isn’t it,” Dr. Gerald Vale said.

Vale said 300 to 500 unidentified bodies come into the coroner’s office each year and only 30 to 40 remain unidentified at the end of the year. Many are transients who have no teeth or whose hygiene habits are such that they would not likely pay for a dentist to install such a disk.

Vale said he identifies an average of 100 bodies annually using dental charts--a procedure he believes is superior to a dental disk, which could be destroyed along with the tooth in a fire or accident.

“If the disk is lost or destroyed, all the identification is lost with it,” Vale said.

But Vale’s counterpart in San Diego County called the dental disk “a valuable bit of evidence.”

Problems With Dental Charts

Dr. Norman D. Sperber s aid that because of improved dental hygiene and a growing acceptance of fluoride, an increasing number of children have no tooth decay. As a result, many may go through life without fillings or other dental marks that are crucial in identifying persons by their dental charts.

Sperber, who helped create a statewide and national system for comparing dental charts of missing persons, is considered by the California Dental Assn. to be the state’s authority on dental identification, an association spokeswoman said.

“We estimate there are 2,000 to 5,000 people who are found unidentified in the United States every year,” Sperber said. “Some may be undocumented aliens who we would never be able to identify. It’s a small number compared to the general population, but the problem of identifying them still exists.”

Conover, who with his partner has leased the manufacturing rights for the product to Micro I/D Inc. in Peoria, Ill., said he became interested in developing an identification disk several years ago while investigating the 1972 disappearance of a 13-year-old Pekin boy.

Conover said he entered the boy’s dental charts into an FBI computer but was told that “there could be several thousand that could have the same dental charts. He only had two fillings.”

Conover said he routinely encounters situations in which the disk would be helpful in identifying the dead. He cited the case of a woman who was murdered in Pekin five years ago and has remained unidentified.

‘Come Up Empty’

“We’ve sent her fingerprints to the FBI and her dental charts to every organization we know of, but we’ve come up empty,” he said.

Conover said the disk is equally useful to adults and children.

“If a woman is mugged on the street and knocked unconscious and her purse is stolen, her identification is gone,” Conover said. “In order for her dental charts to be of use, you have to know who her dentist is.

“We’ve had joggers who have had heart attacks along country roads, and we didn’t know who they were.”

Practicing what he preaches, Conover said that he, his wife and two teen-age daughters have disks on their teeth.

“We believe that everyone who is interested in being identified ought to have one,” he said. “If you had a child and your child disappeared, wouldn’t you want to know if your child was alive or dead?

“Some families have gone for years not knowing. Then, every once in a while, some hope flourishes. It’s so frustrating for the parents to constantly harbor hope, but not know.”

Although the Illinois company is the only one in the country manufacturing the identification disks, a second firm based in Sandy, Utah, hopes to begin marketing a similar product by mid-May.

Tim Howells, president of Exact-I-Dent, said his company’s product will be a microscopic stainless steel bar with a 10-figure code of letters and numbers. By telephoning the company and repeating the code, medical or police officials could learn the identity of the individual.

Howells said his product is designed to withstand fire and need not be replaced when information about the individual--such as address or telephone number--changes.

Howells said the product will be test-marketed in California and Arizona, and he estimates it will cost less than $10.