Happy birthday, ADA!

Your American Dental Association turns 150 years old this year, and it’s in very good health for its age.

With 157,000 members, the ADA represents more than 70 percent of U.S. dentists, making it the world’s largest and oldest national dental association鈥擜merica’s leading advocate for oral health.

The Association’s three-tiered “tripartite” membership system includes 53 constituent (state-territorial) and 544 component (local) dental societies, offering a wide range of services to members and the public.

The ADA’s sesquicentennial celebration got under way at the Association’s 149th annual session in San Antonio last fall and will culminate at the 150th annual session in Hawaii this coming October.

In between, a number of materials and events are being prepared to mark this milestone in ADA history. For details, visit the ADA’s sesquicentennial Web site at www.ada.org.

Those planning the celebration hope to engender “a heightened sense of pride in our longevity and our record of improving the health of our patients over the years,” notes Dr. Walter F. Lamacki, a past ADA trustee from Illinois and chair of the sesquicentennial planning committee.

“Implicit in our message is that the ADA will continue to serve the public and our profession for generations to come,” adds Dr. Lamacki, editor of the Chicago Dental Society’s journal, CDS Review.

For our part, your ADA News will publish a series of sesquicentennial briefs, starting with the Jan. 19 edition. Each brief will present some little-known fact about the Association, its history and development.

Watch for them. And in the meantime, wish yourself a well-earned Happy Birthday!