Rogue Dentist’s 30-Year Crusade Against Wisdom Teeth Removal Extracts Results

Yahoo News ^ | Mon, Dec 3, 2012 | Liz Goodwin

[nickcarraway]

Dr. Jay Friedman relishes his role as dental outcast. Like a pesky younger brother who enjoys watching his siblings squirm, the 86-year-old dentist and public health advocate has for decades been poking and prodding at the oral health community over his personal obsession: wisdom teeth.

Friedman has argued for more than 30 years that removing a young person's healthy wisdom teeth -- called "third molars" by professionals -- is an unnecessary and irresponsible practice. While many dentists and oral surgeons have dismissed him as a traitor and a zealot, in 2007, people in the public health arena began to listen.

That's when Friedman published an article in the American Journal of Public Health claiming at least two-thirds of the millions of wisdom teeth extracted each year at a cost of billions of dollars were removed for no good reason. In pointed terms, Friedman accused his colleagues of ignoring the lack of evidence supporting the need for such surgery in order to line their own pockets.

[AbolishCSEU]

My 25 year old son, who is in the Air Force Reserves, just got all four taken out at once by the military dentist. He had a bit of infection but otherwise was fine. I think you can say the same thing about tonsils. I had mine out last year at the age of 51. Dreadful recovery (3 weeks out of work)and I still don’t have my full sense of taste back, yet not getting colds and the flu, sinusitis, etc like I used to.