The Miami Herald - Friday, March 17, 2000
Eunice Ponce and Karen Rafinski

The health department is urging anyone treated by Oscar Alfredo Lopez, 47, of 6950 W. 30th Ct. to seek testing.

Enrique Torres, the undercover investigator who busted Lopez as he was about to pull one of Torres' teeth, said it was the 35th unlicensed-practice arrest in the last eight months. And he has more than 100 additional "solid" cases under investigation.

"It's an epidemic," Torres said. "There are at least 300 dentists and at least a couple of hundred unlicensed plastic surgeons in Miami-Dade County."

MADE HOUSE CALLS

Lopez, who traveled to his clients' homes to render services ranging from fillings to crowns to extractions, rigged a Coleman cooler with a water jet and a compressor to power his drills.

Torres said Lopez was not sterilizing, or even washing, his dental equipment.

"The drill bit hadn't been cleaned in a while," Torres said. "It was full of [human] tissue."

Torres also found a handful of needles, prompting him to suspect that they may have been reused.

The most serious risks to patients would come from the reuse of needles, because that could expose patients directly to infected blood, which is how the viruses are transmitted, said Dr. Seymour Oliet, dean of the College of Dental Medicine at Nova Southeastern University.

For HIV, the risk from a one-time needle stick with infected blood is about 1 in 300.

HEPATITIS RISKS

The risk for Hepatitis C is about the same, but Hepatitis B is far more contagious, and the risk climbs to about 1 in 3. Luckily, Hepatitis B is the least deadly of the three diseases, although it can cause long-term liver damage. Hepatitis C can also cause liver damage and lead to cancer as well.

The use of unsterilized equipment and unfiltered water in the homemade drill that was used could also spread bacteria and other infectious diseases from patient to patient. The most likely risk would be from Hepatitis B, which can live outside the body for up to 90 days, said Dr. Alberto Avendano, director of HIV services at the division of Family Medicine at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital.

The more visits to the dentist, the higher a patient's risk, but even one exposure can be enough to infect a person under the right circumstances, he said.

"These people should go out and get tested, period."

LEFT LOS ANGELES

Lopez -- charged with unlicensed practice of dentistry, use and control of dental equipment by a nondentist, possession of medical drugs and possession of an unregulated dental lab -- had been practicing in South Florida for about a year. Before that, he had been booted out of Los Angeles for doing the same thing, investigators said.

If any of his clients end up infected, he'll face more serious charges, Torres said.

Lopez, whose card read, "Do It at Home, Easy Payments," charged at least $500 a visit, investigators said, and his clients were mostly immigrants. It's still unclear why they chose to see Lopez rather than a licensed dentist.

"That's the $64,000 question," Torres said. "In some cases, it's money. In this case, most of the people he dealt with were illegal -- the people just didn't know any better. They're afraid they're going to get caught by the authorities, so they try to get whatever [dental services] they can under the circumstances."
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