No later than Aug. 30, 2018, dental practices that employ 10 or more employees must post at the entrance of the office the new Proposition 65 warning notice, unless the practice chooses instead to provide a warning with an informed consent form. The form must be signed by the patient prior to exposure to the chemicals regulated by Proposition 65.
The new single notice replaces the three separate notices for Bisphenol A (BPA), dental amalgam and other restorative materials, and nitrous oxide that dental offices and facilities were previously required to post to comply with Proposition 65, known as the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act. A regulation adopted by the California Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment in fall 2016 revised the notice requirement for dental practices, as CDA first reported in November 2016 on cda.org and in the Update.
Dental schools and laboratories must also comply with the new posting requirement by the August deadline. And although Proposition 65 stipulates that only businesses with 10 or more employees are required to provide “clear and reasonable warning” if a product or business location may expose employees or consumers to a chemical known to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity, CDA Regulatory Compliance Analyst Teresa Pichay “strongly encourages” dental offices with fewer than 10 employees to post the new sign or use the warning notice. “The definition of ‘employee’ is broad, and dentists should err on the side of caution,” she advises.
CDA in 2003 began providing its members with a specific court-approved notice for dental amalgam and other restorative materials, and then began providing a notice for nitrous oxide, which was added to the OEHHA’s list of cancer-causing chemicals a few years later. CDA created a third notice for Bisphenol A (BPA), when that chemical was added to the list in April 2015.
In May 2017, CDA Practice Support updated and published its collection of Proposition 65 resources to include the new required single Proposition 65 notice, which is available in 16 languages. Many dental practices are already complying with the new posting requirement, as the regulation allowed them to do so as early as fall 2016 to allow for a reasonable transition period.