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- [00:00]
A
Hi, guys. I want to talk to you about a podcast. No Such Thing is a show where three best friends and journalists settle their dumb arguments and yours by actually doing the research. You might remember them from the collaboration that we did together on Benjamin Franklin, but I can attest to the show itself being very, very worth listening to. It's hosted by Manny Fadal, Devin Joseph, and Noah Friedman, and each episode begins with a simple but often heated debate amongst them, such as, are dentists scamming us? Are outdoor cats happier than indoor cats? And kids can't read anymore? Does it matter? The hosts then discuss the topic amongst themselves using their own knowledge and gut feelings, which leads to a lot of debates and expressions of opinion about the selected topic that are always very funny. I can attest to this being funny, having been present in the room for some of these. Then they go out into the world, investigate, talk to actual experts, and conduct some sort of kooky experiments. Finally, the guys bring their findings back to the group to see if they can change each other's minds, enlighten one another, and move past their emotional truths. As a spoiler, sometimes they do not move past their emotional truths, which is, I think, more hilarious.
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B
I'm Noah.
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C
This is Devin.
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D
I'm Lily.
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C
Today's episode, a question that nags at me every time I sit in one of their chairs. Are dentists scamming us? We dig into the dental industry's surprisingly dark history.
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E
A lot of the replacement teeth were from corpses.
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C
We hear from someone who uncovered a dentist drilling healthy teeth for profit. How did I let this happen to me? 28 root canals. I must be stupid. And I talk with a startup founder who's trying to blow up the entire industry. Going to the dentist is one of the biggest scams of our modern time.
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E
There's no. No such thing. No such thing. No such thing. No such thing. No such thing.
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C
All right, so in the studio today, we're joined by a friend of the podcast, a licensed therapist, and the writer of the Reality Test newsletter, Lily Kaplan.
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D
Hi, guys.
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C
How's it going?
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D
I'm so happy to be back.
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C
You may remember Lily from the Do I Need Therapy? Episode. So we're glad to have you back for a discussion that has nothing to do with therapy.
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D
I love that.
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C
But, Lily, actually, specifically, we want you on this episode because at Manny and Mia's baby shower a few weeks ago at the afters, we were all gathered around the table, and I was complaining about dentists and saying, hey, I think they're trying to scam me. I think dentists are scammers. We had some other people in the group saying, yeah, dentists are scamming us. And we had one dentist defender at the table. We had one person who said, guys, they're doing what they think is best. They care about your oral care. They are trying to prevent things from getting worse. And that was you, Lily. You were defending the dentist, which was, I thought, an interesting take to have, because I feel like brave dentists have, as we'll talk about in this episode, a pretty negative reputation. But you came in there, you know, supporting them and speaking up for them.
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D
Giving voice to the voiceless.
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C
Exactly.
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D
So I think that my take on dentistry is a bit of a defense, a bit of a yo, yo, from where I used to sit. So I've struggled with a bit more than a bit of what one might call dentophobia throughout my life. So I've been super, super, super avoidant of den, which has caused some problems for my teeth. And I had to get, like, a whole bunch of work done on my mouth, which was pretty painful and terrible. And I had to really overcome my fear of dentists and going to the dentist. I find it a very vulnerable experience to go to the dentist. And, yeah, so I think coming off of that, like, I was not especially that night, and probably still I'm not emotionally prepared to have the view that dentistry as a scam, because I was so far in the other direction of, like, I will not go to the dentist. I cannot go to the dentist. I can't handle the dentist. That the dentist did become truly necessary. And now I would say I'm of the mind that, like, you should go so that you don't end up like me two summers ago.
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C
Noah, talk us through. What are your dentist interactions been like
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B
over the years over the past few years? None. Okay, I'm going. I'm booked. I'm booked to go soon. Long wait list, which. Which I. That was news to me because in the past, I've been able to hop right over there.
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C
Yeah, yeah.
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B
So I didn't have any trauma with. I never minded going, but I never. It was just more of an inconvenient thing to do. But I did feel like my teeth were cleaner after.
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C
Yeah. So basically you're going in for cleanings. Not regularly, as we. Yeah, we're hearing.
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B
It's more laziness than anything else, you know, than, like, mistrust, distrust.
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C
Okay, so the reason we're doing this episode is because of my experience with the dentist for most of my life. Up until high school, had pretty limited interactions with dentists. Never had cavities, besides when I was like a kid. So I was just going for cleanings until my senior year of high school, where we're transporting ourselves to a. The bowling alley in New Jersey where it's the final frame, it's me and my friends, we're going head to head, and I am tied for last place. And if you're a bowling head, you know, the one rule of bowling with your friends is you don't want to come in last. So I just need to hit one to not come in last. So I said, okay. I just don't. Just don't get a gutter ball. That's pretty easy. I don't know why in my mind, you know, I think I wanted to be a little bit of a jokester too. So I was like, let me. Let me granny bowl it. So are you familiar with grainy bowling?
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D
Is that where you do it between your legs?
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C
Yes, yes. You put two hands on a ball, you sort of get your legs nice and wide, and you sort of pull it. The ball between your legs and then push it out.
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B
Yep.
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C
So I did that and I slipped, fell on my face because my hands were up. Remember when you rainy ball, your hands are going, sure. So they're above my head and chipped three or four of my teeth, like on a. On a diagonal. And I know it sounds horrific. It did not hurt at all. Well, I knew immediately that my teeth came out because I could feel there was a gap, but I wasn't bleeding and there was no pain. And the worst part is I went over the line.
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B
Yeah, I was going to ask about.
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C
About that. So it didn't even count.
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D
So you also lost.
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B
You lost more than your four teeth.
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C
Yeah. Little did I know the trajectory that that would put me on, because replacing teeth is very, very expensive. So even with insurance at the time, I ended up having to spend like three or four grand out of pocket for it. And the thing that people don't think about when you get dental work is that it's not a one and done. If you get teeth replaced, you have to get those teeth replaced. If you get it done right, like every 10 years or so, and you're paying thousands of dollars every 10 years or so to get those teeth replaced. So I've gone in to just replace the crown, but my dentist has been really, really trying to get me to replace all of my fake teeth because she's like, I just want to do them all, make it all look, you know, the color will match better. I can make them match better. And I was like, okay, theoretically, that sounds fun. Like, let's find out. How much is that gonna cost? She's like, okay. They run through the insurance. They get an estimate, it's like seven or eight grand. Okay, now let's just do the ones they don't have.
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B
Like a bundle deal.
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C
Yeah, yeah, that's what I was thinking.
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E
Yeah.
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C
I was like, you know, thinking, they're already.
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B
Yeah, all the tools are out there.
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C
If it's only gonna be slightly more expensive, you know, like, why not do it?
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B
Well, then they're all on the same timeline.
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C
Ex. So I told them no. Then they're trying to convince me you can do a payment. I was like, I don't care if it's paying it right now or over a year. I don't want to pay seven or eight grand on teeth just for fun.
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D
Buy them on Klarna.
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C
Yeah, exactly. Buy now, pay later. It's like, I'm still paying, so, no, thank you. So they seem to get the message. I come back. And the thing when you're getting teeth replaced, as you know, when you're getting work done, you have to go in multiple times. So I had to go in, like, three or four times for this crown. And every time I would go in, it was as if I had not had the conversation with them that they were only doing the one tooth. So they would. Down to the last time I was going in to get my permanent in, the dentist was like, okay, so this is gonna take a bit longer. Cause we're doing, you know, all these teeth. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, we're not. So it just felt. And I had liked, I've been going to this dentist for, like, two or three years now. I'd like that dentist up to this point. But it just, to me, felt better. Very scammy in a way of that, like, I've been very clear with you that. And I was pulling the. I can't afford it. You know, I was like, that's gonna shut it down. Like, you know, you could say whatever you want about, like, the cosmetics of it. I was like, I can't afford this right now. I just. I just cannot afford to do it. And the fact that they were still bringing it up every single time, I was like, something's going on here. And I have talked to other people who have been like, oh, yeah, I've been going to the dentist for years. It's been fine. I go to this random dentist. He says, I have all these cavities, so I had to get all these cavities filled. So I guess with this episode, what I want to look into is, is there a dental standard? What are dentists actually doing when they're in your mouth? Right. How do they determine you need a cavity filled? Right. Is. Is there some sort of standard, or are they just freestyling? And then I also want to deal with this idea of dental insurance, and why, with all these experiences that I've had, I've always had dental insurance, and I'm still paying thousands of dollars out of pocket. Why doesn't dental insurance cover more of my oral care? So we're gonna take a break, and when we get back, we're gonna walk you through my deep dive into the world of dentistry. We'll hear about its history. I'll talk to a dentist who found out a colleague was giving his patients unnecessary root canals. And a chat with a guy who says his startup will blow up the industry.
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B
Wow.
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C
All that after the break. All right, we are back. We have a lot to get into in this episode, but first, I want to try to learn how the hell we got here. So I called up journalist AJ Jacobs for a history lesson.
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E
Well, I like the premise because, for instance, I went to the dentist, and they told me I had to get my tooth out. So, like, how am I supposed to know whether that's true or not?
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C
So AJ Used to write this column for this magazine called Mental Floss, and
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E
the column was called the Bad Old Days, because the premise was that the good old days were not good. They were terrible. They were dangerous. They were racist, sexist, smelly. They were just horrible, painful.
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C
And every month, he would cover a new topic, and one of his most memorable months was when he covered dentistry.
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E
You know, I don't like going to the dentist, but I certainly don't like reading about the history of dentistry because it is just horrible.
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C
So let's say it's the 17th century. You're having an issue with one of your teeth. AJ Said you would typically go to a barber surgeon, which was a combination
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E
of a barber and a surgeon. And dentistry was often lumped in with surgery because you're taking stuff out of the body that was basically surgery.
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C
And an important thing to note is that during this time period, doctors did not perform surgery. So the church viewed surgery as being unclean because you were touching bodily fluids. So barber surgeons were seen as being more similar to something like a blacksmith. So back to our role play. If you have a toothache, they would rip your tooth out basically with no anesthetic at all.
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E
Or maybe they'd give you some whiskey
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C
or something even weirder.
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E
For some reason, in the 17th, 18th century, medical practitioners were obsessed with enemas. There's not a huge overlap between your teeth and your butt, but they just were like, let's shoot things up the butt and see if that helps the teeth.
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C
So barber surgeons were basically your best case scenario back then, because there were also some straight up grifters.
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A
Are dentists scamming us? Listen to the full episode to hear about the dark history of dentistry, the story of a dentist who uncovered widespread, unnecessary procedures, and why even experts say the dental healthcare industry isn't built in your favor. Listen to no such thing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every Wednesday.