Dentist

Leonard A. Levin, 76, longtime Vineland dentist and one of the first to work in mobile dental trailers aiding indigent children, died Sunday at Newcomb Medical Center, Vineland. A lifelong Vineland resident, he was a 1939 graduate of Vineland High School. Dr. Levin practiced dentistry with offices at 609 Landis Ave. in Vineland for many years. He also was the part-time dentist for the New Jersey Veterans Memorial Home in Vineland for 42 years before retiring last year. He also was the first dentist in Cumberland County - and perhaps in New Jersey - to provide dental care to indigent children through a state program using a mobile dental trailer.

Dentists and AIDS activists reacted with skepticism and anxious concern yesterday to a report by the Centers for Disease Control that a woman apparently contracted the AIDS virus from her dentist even though he was wearing gloves and a mask. The report marks the first time that a case has been documented in which a health care worker transmitted the virus to a patient during a medical procedure, experts said. "I'm concerned that it will cause another wave of AIDS hysteria," said Thomas P. Nordone, an oral surgeon at Pennsylvania Hospital.

Two more indecent-assault charges involving female patients have been filed against a Darby Borough dentist. Police said the latest charges against Arvin Bartolazo, 29, of the 400 block of Fitzwater Street, Philadelphia, followed a similar case in which he is accused of fondling a 14-year-old girl on Aug. 16 while cleaning her teeth in his office at 875 Main St. In the latest case, a woman said Friday that he had touched her right breast several...

A Philadelphia dentist and his mother have been charged with raking in more than $160,000 in Medicaid payments, sometimes by forging other dentists' signatures, after being barred from the government medical-assistance program for violations in 1977. Pennsylvania Attorney General LeRoy S. Zimmerman, who filed the charges yesterday, identified the suspects as Dr. Stanley Dubin, 50, of Ford Road near Daphne Street, and Lillian Dubin, 70, of Robina Street near Lockart. The dentist also is charged with tampering with records subpoenaed by a statewide investigating grand jury.

The U.S. attorney's office in Philadelphia yesterday sued five local physicians and one dentist who accepted public health scholarships but then reneged on an agreement to serve tours of duty in areas of the country where they were needed. "They don't want to go where we want to send them," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Virginia R. Powel. The penalty may be high, since Congress has authorized courts to impose triple damages in cases in which the scholarships were granted after 1977, Powel said.

Mark LaMura and Lisa Gunn seem calm enough as they enter the dentist's outer office, even though they are about to undergo an unusual procedure that dentist Irwin Wesler has never performed in more than a third of a century's practice. "Who wants to be first?" Wesler asks. LaMura and Gunn look at each other. LaMura shrugs. "OK, I will," he volunteers. He sits in the dentist's chair. "Open," Wesler commands. "Will there be any blood?" LaMura asks, in a sepulchral Eastern European accent, a note of hope in his voice.

Everett H. Yake, 84, of Paoli, a retired dentist who co-founded a dental clinic during the Depression that provided free care for underprivileged school children, died of hepatitis C Wednesday at Paoli Memorial Hospital. The clinic continues as the Children's Dental Clinic at the Tredyffrin/Easttown Middle School in Berwyn and is supported by donations. It provides low-cost dental care to qualified schoolchildren. Dr. Yake and four other dentists started the clinic because "many children were going without dental," said his wife of 51 years, Esther P. Yake.

Nicholas J. Ragni, a retired dentist with a deep interest in the arts and literature who enjoyed helping aspiring young actors, died Monday at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. His family declined to disclose his age. Dr. Ragni - known to friends as "Nicky" - had practiced dentistry for more than 40 years, from offices in Philadelphia, Medford and Minotola, Atlantic County, and always took great care with his patients, a family member said. "If he did a cap on you, you'd never know it was a cap by looking at it," said his sister, Anna H. Ragni.

I NSTEAD OF HANDING out toothbrushes and dental floss, a dentist in East Mount Airy dished out prescriptions for Percocet and Oxycodone and may have treated patients while he was high on crack, according to the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office. A monthlong investigation that began with a tip from a confidential informant ended Thursday with the arrest of Chandrakant Parekh, 62, who sold at least 14 prescriptions for Oxycodone and Percocet for between $30 and $40 each from his clinic on Germantown Avenue near Sharpnack Street, authorities said.

A Main Line dentist who dumped syringes and other medical waste in the waters off Avalon, closing beaches there and setting off a panic at the Jersey Shore shortly before Labor Day 2008, yesterday agreed to pay $100,000 to the resort. Thomas W. McFarland Jr., 61, of Wynnewood, pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful discharge of water pollutants before Superior Court Judge Raymond A. Batten. McFarland will serve no jail time. The charge - a fourth-degree crime - was downgraded from two third-degree counts that each carried a penalty of up to five years in prison.