Health Editor’s Note: Root canals cause cancer, specifically breast cancer? Geez, what is coming next? Here is the scenario that sends one for a root canal. For whatever reason the nerve in a tooth dies, and that is when your trouble begins. The tooth may have been damaged from a blow and then a crack, etc. Whatever happened to compromise the normal health of the tooth, bacteria has gained access into the inside of the tooth, where there is a space to hold the nerves and blood supply for that tooth.
Think of a tooth as a test tube that is permanently closed. The bacteria within the tooth multiply, destroy the nerve, tissues inside the tooth and this creates an issue where the inside of the tooth (test tube) cannot hold everything that is created within the decaying tooth root and pressure inside increases and this pressure causes pain, horrible pain. The remedy for this mess is to drill a hole into the tooth, remove the dead or dying nerve, infection, additional materials, disinfect the inside of the tooth (test tube), and eventually fill the tooth with a filling so no further bacteria can enter the tooth.
There is no ignoring a tooth that is that infected. There is no reason to not obtain a root canal, usually from an endodontist or one who specializes in teeth and diseases that can affect teeth. Pain will keep you awake, keep you from enjoying life. Make you absolutely miserable.
It used to be that when a tooth became that infected it was simply extracted/pulled/yanked out with the opposing tooth eventually loosening and falling out since it has no surface to oppose it when biting down or chewing. Eventually both teeth were lost instead of just the one that was infected. Frazer Bailey is NUTS and Deluded……Carol
Dentists, endodontists and dental researchers are warning Netflix, Apple, Amazon and Vimeo to remove a documentary that spreads fear and misinformation about the safety of root canals and extracting wisdom teeth.
Article from the Guardian
Root Cause takes viewers through the Australian film-maker Frazer Bailey’s years-long quest to identify the cause of his fatigue, anxiety and depression. Bailey tries therapy, antidepressant medication, juice cleanses, chakra balancing and hypnosis. He even drinks his own urine. But aided by holistic dentists, he eventually concludes that the source of his malaise is a root canal he got as a young man – a procedure he needed to save a tooth after getting punched in the mouth.
Bailey’s 72-minute film makes eye-popping claims about how cancer, heart conditions and other serious illnesses are caused by asymptomatic infections inside root canals or in the empty spaces left behind after a wisdom tooth extraction. Bacteria and other toxins, the film argues, fester in the jaw and then travel to other organs along “meridian lines”, which according to traditional Chinese medicine move life force throughout the body, spreading infection and causing cancer and other illnesses to take root.
Among the most jarring claims in Root Cause is a connection between root canals and breast cancer. “Ninety-eight per cent of women that have breast cancer have a root canal tooth on the same side as their offending breast cancer,” the film repeats.
Concerned that dentists are receiving more and more questions from patients about the treatments, the American Dental Association (ADA), American Association of Endodontists (AAE) and American Association of Dental Research (AADR) warned the media companies in a private letter sent late last month that continuing to host the film could harm the viewing public by spreading long-disproven claims.
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“The premise the film is based on dates back to research conducted in the 1920s which was later disproved because the original conditions for the experiments were poorly controlled and performed in non-sterile environments. Perhaps most importantly, other researchers have not been able to duplicate the results from the original experiment. Why portray information demonstrated to be incorrect as fact?” the letter asks.
In a separate letter, directed at the three associations’ approximately 174,000 members, they advise readers on how to answer patients’ questions about the movie.
It’s the first time the AAE and AADR have ever issued a member-wide alert or written to a media platform in response to a film or TV program.
Root Cause got little attention when it was released in the fall of 2018, but dentists say that patients have begun asking them more about the safety of root canals since the film was picked up by Netflix last month. While Netflix doesn’t release data on the number of viewers a program attracts, it has approximately 58 million subscribers in the US.
The size of the content platform, as well as its ability to suggest new content to users based on their previous viewing activity, can help make inaccurate things go viral, said Paul Resnick, director of the Center for Social Media Responsibility at the University of Michigan.
One way to militate against fringe, potentially harmful content is to simply stop suggesting it to viewers, Resnick said. However, media platforms also have an additional responsibility to viewers, he said, which is to preserve a “healthy marketplace of ideas” as much as possible.
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“I don’t want crap to get wide distribution, but I also want there to be some vehicle for new ideas and claims to get out there, even if it challenges the current orthodoxy.”
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The right to free speech, however, doesn’t absolve these large media platforms of the responsibility to vet the content they host, argued Erica Austin, founding director of the Edward R Murrow Center for Media & Health Promotion Research at Washington State University. Unlike user-generated content sites like Facebook or YouTube, Netflix offers a curated selection that includes its own produced content as well as other TV shows and films.
“People are likely to view the fact that the outlet is publishing the content as an endorsement of it,” Austin said. “If that is not the intention then the management of the site has a responsibility to very clearly preface the content with a disclaimer and to label opinions as something distinct from evidence-based reporting.”
Netflix declined a request for comment. Apple, Amazon and Vimeo did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Dr Jennifer Gibbs, director of endodontics at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, was also uncomfortable saying that Netflix and other platforms should simply delete the film from their sites.
But she stood firm against the film’s message, and expressed worry that it could influence people to get rid of infected teeth unnecessarily.
“I don’t know where their claims are coming from,” Gibbs told the Guardian about the breast cancer figure. “I don’t think they’re based on any kind of scientific research that is evidence-based or peer-reviewed.”
Large-scale population-based research shows that people with root canals actually have a lower risk of cardiovascular mortality or death from a cardiovascular condition.
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And there aren’t any studies that show people who get root canals have a higher risk of cancer, said Eric Jacobs, senior scientific director of epidemiology research at at the American Cancer Society, in an email. In fact, research on the link between cancer and endodontic procedures like root canals shows that people who have had these treatments have a lower risk of certain cancers.
“The danger of these claims is that these fears can crowd out other, real cancer risks,” Jacobs said, noting that viewers may wind up ignoring known risk factors for getting or dying of cancer, including smoking, weight gain, and failing to get the right cancer screening tests on time.
Instead of getting a root canal, the film claims that pulling the infected tooth is the safest approach, and dentists worry the film is influencing patients to unnecessarily have damaged teeth removed.
“This is a really well-produced film designed to scare people into seeking out some fringe medical and dental therapies,” said Gibbs.
Tooth extraction can result in serious health consequences over time, said Dr Mo Kang, professor and chair of the section of endodontics at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Dentistry.
While root canals can’t save every tooth, said Kang, leaving the natural tooth intact helps maintain the jawbone’s original structure. Without the original tooth, the surrounding jawbone that once supported it will eventually break down, affecting a person’s appearance and their ability to chew.
“Let’s say I have an infection under my fingernail,” said Kang. “Do you amputate my finger because of that? That’s exactly what they’re claiming.”
Carol graduated from Riverside White Cross School of Nursing in Columbus, Ohio and received her diploma as a registered nurse. She attended Bowling Green State University where she received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in History and Literature. She attended the University of Toledo, College of Nursing, and received a Master’s of Nursing Science Degree as an Educator.
She has traveled extensively, is a photographer, and writes on medical issues. Carol has three children RJ, Katherine, and Stephen – one daughter-in-law; Katie – two granddaughters; Isabella Marianna and Zoe Olivia – and one grandson, Alexander Paul. She also shares her life with her husband Gordon Duff, many cats, and two rescues.
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While not intending to take a position either way on this issue of root canals and the claims of the film, which I have not watched, I would first say censorship is an absolute NO. The dental industry has a sordid reputation of circling the wagons when anyone comes forward with criticisms of some of their methods instead of directly answering the critics. Consider the fluoridation of tooth paste and the water supply. In this case some very distinguished biochemists have criticized this procedure but all the powerful dental lobbies do is seek to disparage the critics rather than scientifically answer the claims. One of the critics was the late Dean Burk, Ph.D., perhaps one of the greatest biochemists of the 20th Century along with his mentor the greatest biochemist the late Otto Warburg, M.D, Ph.D. in Germany. I would urge people to read this profound obituary of him at this link for information on this important subject:
http://whale.to/cancer/burk.html
“John Yiamouyiannis, a Ph.D. in biochemistry who had joined the NHF as Science Director and who was a formidable combatant in the fight against fluoridation.” The late John Yiamouyiannis, Ph.D. was also a top biochemist who strongly criticized the practice of mandated fluoridation of the public water supplies. They found this procedure caused thousands of cases of cancer but denied and obstructed by the orthodoxy.
Regarding the issue of root canals, what one does know is that cancer is caused anywhere in the body by oxygen deficiency to cells over a relatively long period of time. This was proved by extensive experiments and facts by the genius in Germany Otto H. Warburg, M.D., Ph.D. first for animals, followed about 40 years later for humans. To the extent that a root canal procedure could be responsible for this could then lead to cancer. I am not suggesting this is the case, only that it could be a possibility since a root canal procedure involves blood supplies and nerves and therefore involves much more than simply the local area of the mouth. For a good readable discussion of Warburg’s work I recommend the book “The Hidden Story of Cancer” by Brian Peskin, E.E. and Amid Habib, M.D., Pinnacle Press, Houston, 2006-2010.
Warburg was the best of the best. He published over 500 scientific papers and books. He was awarded the solo Nobel Prize in medicine in 1931. He was nominated for the first cancer prize in 1926 but it was awarded to Fibiger whose work was wrong. He was again nominated in 1944 for as yet another Nobel Prize for different work but denied by Hitler’s decree. Three of his pupils Meyerhof, Krebs and another were awarded shared Nobel Prizes. Warburg died in 1970. The medical orthodoxy in the U.S. has criminally obstructed his conclusions based on experiments and facts, not genetic speculations which have got nowhere.
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