Why dental associations promote fluoridation? Pt1
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To set the issue into perspective, let's first get a feel of what kind of money is involved in this whole fluoridation racket.
Here are two quotes from a very interesting article by Gary Null, Ph.D entitled "Fluoridation Fiasco".
The quotes are from the inteview Dr.Null conducted with Dr. John Yiamouyiannis and Dr. William Marcus in 1995.
Dr.Yiamouyiannis:
"[...] the indiscriminate and careless handling of fluoride has a lot of companies, such as Exxon, U.S. Steel, and Alcoa, making tens of billions of dollars in extra profits at our expense....
For them to go ahead now and admit that this is bad [...] presents a problem, a threat, [it] would mean tens of billions of dollars in lost profit because they would have to handle fluoride properly.
Fluoride is present in everything from phosphate fertilizers to cracking agents for the petroleum industry."
Dr. Bill Marcus:
[Fluoride could only be legally disposed of at a great cost to industry.] "There are prescribed methods for disposal and they're very expensive.
Fluoride is a very potent poison. It's a registered pesticide, used for killing rats or mice....
If it were to be disposed of, it would require a class-one landfill.
That would cost the people who are producing aluminum or fertilizer about $7000+ per 5000- to 6000-gallon truckload to dispose of it. It's highly corrosive."
So here is the situation - it would cost the industry billions of dollars to implement the safe means of toxic industrial waste disposal.
If public could be mislead into believing that adding fluorides to drinking water is a beneficial thing, pretty much the only expense would be to pay the agents who would agree to promote fluoridation of drinking water.
Moreover, if fluoridation is adopted, industry could also count on profits from selling fluorides to municipalities, who would then be adding it to drinking water.
And even if they get just a few hundred dollars for a few thousand gallons, it is still much much better than paying several thousand dollars to have it stored at a toxic landfill site!
Pretty much the only "challenge" would be to find the agents who would agree to put their reputation on line and to start promoting the benefits of adding toxic industrial waste to drinking water.
I, obviously, cannot know whether or not the dental associations had been approached for the purpose of securing their support on the issue of water fluoridation.
As one can well imagine, some people would be quite willing to do bad things, provided, they are paid for that.
And if they agree to do it, then it would only be "natural" for them to ask for a reward which is commensurate with the gravity of the "transgression".
Could we imagine a situation where every year the fluoride-producing industries write checks for the total amount of several hundred million dollars and send it to the national, as well as State Dental Associations in US and Canada?
I think that it is pretty difficult to imagine. The risk of exposure would be unacceptably high, since any member would then have a proof and would be able to ruin the entire racket by exposing how it came into existence.
Some might even contemplate blackmailing the association brass with that evidence of collusion with polluters!
Some courageous dentists are already speaking out against their associations' policy on fluoridation, even under a risk of getting their licences revoked.
What if those dentists would get some real proof that their association is in cahoots with the industry to dump toxic industrial waste into drinking water?
It is hard to imagine the scale of the scandal that would result from such an exposure!
Many people high up in the hierarchy of dental associations would, no doubt, end up in prison, the profession would be financially ruined by numerous lawsuits.
And so I believe it is highly unlikely there is a direct cash transfer from the industry to the dental associations.
However, there may be another explanation why dental associations do not get tired of telling us that rat poison in our drinking water is good for us.
Some people may even call it a conspiracy theory, but, conspiracy or not, we need an answer, which would help us to chart a course of the action to expose this racket. Any way you put it, support of fluoridation by dental and medical associations is a very serious obstacle towards a fluoride-free drinking water.
The "conspiracy theory" on which I elaborate here is different from another one on this site, where I advance a hypothesis that fluoridation can be used as a means of controlling the population, "helping" the people to "think right" and not to "deviate" from the "correct" behavior.
But these are just hypotheses, something one can arrive at by analyzing circumstantial evidence.
As far as this fluoridation racket is concerned, different parties can promote it for their own reasons, which means any one theory might only describe the motivations of a single party, and yet they end up helping each other by pushing that rat poison down our throats.
So let's explore some realities of buying dental treatment and see if we can find there a connection with pro-fluoridation posturing of the dental associations in US and Canada.
When we do business with dental profession, in other words, when we buy dental treatment in dental offices, it is done very much differently, as compared to doing business with other trades and professions.
Everybody who ever had to buy dental treatment, knows how it works in a dental office - dentist "takes charge" and leads you through the course of a treatment, with you having no say in what you want done or what you can or cannot afford.
After he is done, you get a bill, which may well have just the total amount and the words "For professional services", and nothing else!
And how are you supposed to figure out what kind of work has been done and whether he charged you the fees within the recommended spread?
This is very much different from how we deal with other businesses and professions!
We cannot even imagine somebody leaving his car in a garage and telling the mechanic to do "whatever is necessary"!
Or allowing a home renovation contractor a similar deal, where he does "whatever is necessary" and bills you at the end.
And yet that's essentially how we end up dealing with the dental profession!
If some car mechanic, a home renovator, electrician, landscape contractor, etc. would try practices, which are routine in a dental office, they would be running a very serious risk of provoking a response from their clients, which may well involve a threat of a legal action or terminating the contract.
If that would not be enough to straighten out the "enterprising tradesmen", legislators may also want to look at the whole thing and issue appropriate laws, designed to put an end to any inappropriate practices.
As a matter of fact, some rather strict laws, which regulate our contractual relations with others, already exist.
But somehow little of this, if any, is happening when dentists are involved in certain practices, which would be considered highly inappropriate if tried by some other trades or professions.
Let me illustrate the whole thing with a few examples:
The Canadian edition of Reader's Digest, September 1998 issue, had an article "Our Dentists: How Honest Are They?"
It was written by an investigative reporter who went on a fact-finding assignment, visiting 45 dental offices across Canada.
Obviously, dentists did not know they were "selected" for this assignment.
The estimates he got ranged from the price of a check-up and a diagnosis "healthy" to over ten thousand dollars!
The author, in an apparent attempt to treat the subject diplomatically, says that one can experience "overservicing" or "overtreatment" in some dental offices.
He was, obviously, reluctant to use the terms like "pressure-selling", "fraud", but no matter how we call it, the intent is often quite obvious - to make the client buy everything that is being offered.
Quite possibly more that the client needs or can afford!
Here is another example to illustrate this situation:
I used to buy dental treatment from one woman dentist from Russia.
After she came to Canada, she was working as a dental assistant for several years, before she was able to start her own practice.
She said that the dentist she worked for was a "fast driller", the kind that runs a double-layered appointment schedule and shuttles between two "procedure rooms" most of the time.
Apparently pushed by his desire to squeeze maximum revenues from his practice, he wasn't taking adequate care in preparing cavities and was enlarging them more than necessary.
He was routinely using large bores, when working on small cavities.
And if he was working on two cavities of different sizes, he would be using the same set of bores for both, which, of course, meant that the bore was too big for the smaller cavity.
He was also drilling "by eye", without bothering to scratch the inside surface of a cavity with a dental probe, which is the only reliable way of making sure that an absolute minimum of healthy dental tissue is being destroyed during cavity preparation.
As one can well imagine, this kind of "liberal" drilling considerably speeds up things.
According to what I heard, dentist, who takes care to prepare a cavity, proceeds very slow at the final stage of cavity preparation, he probably does more scratching with a probe, than drilling.
But, of course, a dentist, who drills largely "by eye", a dentist who drills "liberally", would be able to churn much more patients through his office.
The more "innocent" types of questionable activities you can encounter when buying dental treatment is pressure-selling.
Or we can use the euphemism coined by that investigative reporter from "Reader's Digest" and call it "overtreatment" or "overservicing".
The purpose of it, as the name implies, is to make you buy more than you think you need; quite possibly more, than your condition is "worth".
By a simple logical extension we can call this - making you pay for nonessential dental procedures.
Over the years, I had to face quite a few of those!
At least one dentist tried to sell me a few-minute lecture about dental hygiene.
It came to about a dollar for each dozen spoken words!
I noticed it just in time and told him that I do not need it.
It is quite possible I did end up paying for lectures like that on other occasions, but it was with dentists who were not giving me itemized receipts, with all the dental procedure codes listed.
In those days I simply did not have what it takes to demand itemized receipts!
Obviously, according to the dental profession, this is not some "questionable practices", and definitely not fraud, this is called "educating the public about importance of dental hygiene and proper dental care".
It is a perfectly legal dental procedure, with a "legitimate" procedure code!
I, certainly, would have no problem with it if advised about it in advance - "would you like me to tell you (or your child) how important it is to brush and floss regularly? It would only be thirty dollars! (or forty or whatever)"
But dentists "sneak" such things in! You get a bill, with no procedure codes listed, where you can only see the words "For professional services" and the total amount.
Or a bill may have the procedure numbers, but no description of what they are.
And how can you be sure you are not being charged for something you did not ask for, for something you did not order, for something you did not think you need?
And even if all procedures were those, which are normally performed for this particular type of dental restoration, how do you know you had not been charged in excess of the recommended fee?
What if you had a dental procedure performed, which had only marginal therapeutic or diagnostic value?
What if it was totally useless?
For example, once I had a gum check-up where dentist was gently prickling my gums with a probe, apparently watching how quickly the capillary bed refills after having been squeezed.
When presented with a bill and after estimating the number of those prickles, it came up to about three dollars per prickle for the total of over 150 dollars!
A rather blatant example of "overtreatment", to put it mildly!
And on top of that, there was no procedure codes anywhere on the bill!
It was not even designed to have the procedure codes written!
It had an address of the office and the names of the dentists working there.
The dentist who performs the work simply checks off his name, writes the amount and that's what you get.
And, sure enough, that dentist told me that my gums have receded more than they should at my age and that I need treatment.
He did not tell me, though, what the treatment would involve. A rather strange fact, I must say.
Considering that I did not come to see him with gum problems, I would like to hear a few specifics about that treatment.
But nothing of the sort was offered!
Did he feel that if I was gullible enough to pay him for some fifty prickles at a rate of three dollars per prickle, I would buy the next "installment", as well?
It looked to me that this "diagnosis" about receding gums was in reality a smoke screen designed to create an impression that my money was well-spent, that he conducted a legitimate diagnostic test and that it produced the results, which he duly conveyed to me.
I am not a dentist, but from what I read, the "legitimate procedure" to see how far gums have receded is dental pockets check-up.
This procedure involves pushing a special needle along the tooth to determine how deep it would go.
Normal depth is about two millimeters; deeper "dental pockets" indicate that the integrity of contact between dental surface and gums has been compromised by some pathological developements.
Coming back to that case, when I got my gums prickled, that was the last time I saw that dentist, as I stopped buying further treatment in that office.
And I was asking other dentists if they heard about this procedure, when gums are gently prickled with a dental probe and if that is a "legitimate" procedure to determine the integrity of a contact between dental surface and gums.
The answer was that they either did not hear about that procedure or they prefer to use dental pockets check-up.
The answers I was getting from other dentists, as well as the letter I have got from the dental association after I asked them about this procedure, made me believe that I have been "relieved" of my money in exchange for a service of a very questionable value.
And since we mentioned dental pockets check-up, this is another procedure, which is not being presented with "full disclosure".
Since I did my reading about it, I know the purpose of that procedure.
However, when I was just like the majority of dental patients and did not know anything about it, I found it strange that dentists see no problem with checking those "dental pockets", while not telling their clients anything about it - what kind of a condition they are looking for, what indicates pathology - deeper dental pockets or the shallower ones, is there a treatment for this condition?
I had it done to me a few times, but I had never been told anything about it!
I think it is only reasonable to expect that if this procedure is designed to identify a certain pathological condition, then a patient should be told in advance what exactly the doctor intends to look for and what kind of treatment procedures are available to alleviate this condition or to stop the further deterioration of gums, or at least to slow it down.
But nothing like that was offered! It was a total silence on the part of every single dentist who had ever been performing this procedure in my mouth.
We cannot imagine an honest medical doctor sending a patient for x-rays without any intention to look for some kind of a pathology.
Something like that would constitute an actionable case of fraud and malpractice!
I am not trying to say that if medical science has no cure for a particular condition, then a doctor should not even be looking for it.
For example, arthritis is considered incurable, and yet doctors diagnose it and they treat arthritis patients, albeit the mainstream medicine can only hope to reduce pain and inflammation somewhat.
But still, I find it unacceptable when I am subjected to a test, which is not cheap and which is allegedly designed to identify a certain pathological condition and yet I am not told what it is, what constitutes pathology and which treatments are available.
One might say that it would be unrealistic to expect a dentist to spend time explaining each patient the details of this or that procedure.
I would agree that the time of a professional is very expensive, plus the dental assistant would also have to be paid while she is listening to this or that presentation for a hundredth or a thousandth time.
But why not print flyers or inexpensive booklets, where all those things are explained?
But somehow none of that is being offered, instead we only see a smoke screen, which is, no doubt, designed to show that this is a very important diagnostic test and should be done regularly.
There is even a special chart on which the "pocket depth" is marked for every tooth, after that dentist connects those dots, producing an impressively-looking diagram.
And that is fine, if they consider it important, let them have it in their arsenal, which can be offered to clients, after they have been properly informed about it.
But we know that it is done differently - dentist simply performs that procedure as a part of a general check-up, without telling you anything.
And, of course, his time, as well as time of the dental assistant and the office overhead are included into the price of that check-up, which you may well get all lumped up under one line "For Professional Services".
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