As if dental visits weren’t terrifying enough, a Jacksonville, Florida pediatric dentist has been charged with performing unnecessary tooth extractions on children, and possibly slapping and choking them in the process, CNN reports.
Although patients have issued claims against 78 year-old Dr. Howard Schneider in the past, including a three year-old whose family settled out of court after the infant received 16 “unnecessary” crowns, Schneider’s medical practice has remained relatively unscathed until now.
Protesters have been gathering outside his office for weeks, since Anderson Cooper 360 unveiled the gruesome details of allegations, including an undercover cell phone video of a child screaming while undergoing a dental operation.
Cooper’s attention was drawn to the story after Brandi Motley began a Facebook campaign that went viral. Motley had taken her six year-old daughter to Dr. Schneider’s practice to have one tooth pulled. Staff refused to allow Motley to sit alongside her daughter during the procedure, immediately raising a red flag.
The daughter emerged from the operation shaken and splattered with blood.
“She was hyperventilating and had blood all over her, marks all over her,” Motley said.
Motley removed the gauze from her daughter’s mouth and discovered that seven teeth had been extracted when only one was required. Even more troubling, the girl told her mother that the dentist had hit and choked her during the procedure.
After police twice failed to take action on the matter, Motley drafted a Facebook post about the incident. Legions of other parents emerged with similar stories of children’s nonessential dental surgery and abuse.
One such mother, Amanda Berry, was unable to hear her son yelling for her because she is deaf. Her son had two front teeth removed for “unknown reasons” and he claims that the dentist choked him as well.
Several civil and class-actions suits are now being issued against Schneider, and attorneys believe he may have extracted additional teeth because Medicaid pays on a per tooth basis.
The government benefit has treated Schneider well: in the past five years alone, he’s earned nearly $4 million dollars from the program.
The Florida Attorney General’s office is now conducting a criminal Medicaid fraud investigation into the matter.
