{"id":198172,"date":"2026-05-20T20:09:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T20:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/198172\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T20:09:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T20:09:09","slug":"philly-dental-patients-warned-of-possible-exposure-to-hepatitis-hiv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/198172\/","title":{"rendered":"Philly dental patients warned of possible exposure to hepatitis, HIV"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? <a href=\"#Section1\">Let us know!<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p>Philadelphia public health officials are warning patients of a dental practice in Center City that they should be tested for hepatitis C, hepatitis B and HIV after state regulators temporarily suspended the clinic\u2019s license last week due to \u201cunsanitary practices.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>The warning targets patients who got dental work at Smiles at Rittenhouse Square, also known as Smiles on the Square, from April 2025 through May of this year.\n<\/p>\n<p>The Pennsylvania Department of State suspended the license of dentist Dr. Kitri Chopra following an in-person unannounced investigation of the practice\u2019s infection control practices in March, according to court documents.\n  <\/p>\n<p>Investigators identified multiple safety concerns and violations, including the reuse of vials containing local anesthetic medication across multiple patients. The vials are intended to be single-use products.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe risks of reuse upon subsequent patients include, but are not limited to, transmission of hepatitis C, hepatitis B, human immunodeficiency virus, as well as other pathogen transmissions,\u201d attorneys wrote on behalf of the state\u2019s Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs.\n<\/p>\n<p>State officials also accuse Chopra and the practice of not replacing saline bags used for implant procedures between patients until the bags are empty, which can put people at risk of contracting a disease. However, they noted that the practice does replace the lines attached to the bags after every patient.\n<\/p>\n<p>Investigators also found that the practice improperly used a method of cleaning dental instruments called \u201cflash sterilization\u201d that was not viable and not consistent with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations, court documents state.\n<\/p>\n<p>State regulators concluded that Chopra represented \u201can immediate and clear danger to public health or safety\u201d and petitioned the state Board of Dentistry to suspend her license.\n        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[30978,23147,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-198172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-hepatitis","tag-hiv","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}