The registration process requires a valid credit card and e-mail address and takes just a few minutes. The deadline for advance registration and hotel reservations is Sept. 2. For more information, visit "www.ada.org/goto/session".

INFECTION CONTROL
In late 2003, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued the first comprehensive update to infection control guidelines for dentistry since 1993: Guidelines for Infection Control in Dental Health-Care Settings—2003. This year, the agency released a slide set on those guidelines, available on the CDC Web site, to help train clinical dental staff in currently recommended infection control practices.

The slide set can be downloaded in PowerPoint format or viewed directly on the CDC Web site by visiting "www.cdc.gov/oralhealth/infectioncontrol/guidelines/index.htm". The materials include speaker notes that accompany the slides as well as updates of information in the guidelines issued in 2003.

SPAM, FOR BETTER AND FOR WORSE
In the one and one-half years since the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act to stem the flow of unsolicited commercial e-mail became law, the volume of spam traveling across the Internet has increased—but the average e-mail user is less bothered by it.

This paradoxical conclusion is among the findings of a data memo released by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in April reporting on life online in the wake of the CAN-SPAM Act.

According to the memo, spam filtering companies reported that spam volumes in 2004 were up significantly—as much as 80 percent by some estimates—despite the 2003 law making many spamming practices illegal.

However, when asked about the ways in which unsolicited e-mail affects their online habits, fewer of those polled indicated negative effects in January 2005 than had done so one year earlier. For instance, in January 2005 some 22 percent of e-mail users said spam reduced their use of e-mail, versus 29 percent in February 2004. Similarly, the number of e-mail users who said spam made being online unpleasant or annoying dropped from 77 percent in 2004 to 67 percent in 2005.

Why the change of heart about spam, despite its increase in volume? Pew offers several explanations, including more ubiquitous use of better e-mail filters that allow less spam to reach inboxes, better "spam avoidance behavior" by e-mail users and a decline in unsolicited e-mail with pornographic content.

PHONE, 1-312-440-2500 For ADA’s members-only toll-free line, see your membership card

FAX 1-312-440-7494

ONLINE www.ada.org

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