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30-NEXUS THE IDANGERS OF ROOT-CANAL FlllllNGS ARE EXPOSED "A new truth," warned Weston Price, "is like a new sense. You are now agJ.e.-to see things that you could not see before." . Weston Price, former DirectQr of Resear~hfor the American Denta,l Association for 14 years, spent 35 years of his professional career researching the systemic diseases of the heart, kidney, uterus, nervous system and endocrine ,system, that resulted from toxins seeping out of mot-canal-filled teeth. A certain percentage of people are sensitive to tox: ins that are manufactured within these dead teeth. Price saw many truths that even today we have a hard time seeing, for we are bOgged down in but-we've-always-done-it-that-way' thinking. We are too habitual to adopt his sense of 'new truth'. His observations led him far beyond the accepted remedies of that day. Incidentally, those remedies are basically the same treatments that are the foundation of today's root canal fundamentals. He researched 24 of those fundamentals and found each to be lacking. Some of 'the 'lacking' fundamentals included: X-rays revealing the presence of infec tion; infections ex:pressing themselves as bone absorption; a given dental infection will ex:press itself approximately the same in all people; if pus is flowing from a tooth it is a dangerous sign; and local comfort of a treated tooth is evidence of the success of a root filled tooth procedure. He made-quite a stir in the dental community. Even with his vast experience, educa ltional background, and thousands of controlled e~periments, dentists were resistant to changing their thinlcing about the root can.a.l procedures that they had already been per forming for decades. What did Price fmd that convinced him that people could not' toler ate root canals? First he observed that if he removed root-filled teeth from people suffering from kidney and heart disease, in mOSt cases they would improve. In an effort to establish a relalion ship between Ithe tooth and the disease, he inserted the root-fined teeth under the skin of rabbits. Rahbits have a similar immune system to that of hwnans. In fact, a normal, non infected hwnan tooth (as removed for orthodontic reasons) can be inserted under the 'skin of a rabbit for a year with practically no ("eaction. A thin film will form over it, but micro scopically there are no rejection cells present. When a root-filled tooth was implanted under the skin of a rabbit, the rabbit died within 'less than two days, sometimes within 12 hours. If a very small fragment (as an extract of the tooth) were used, within two weeks the rabbit Would lose over 20% of its body weight, and die of heart disease or kidney disease if that is what the hwnan donor had. To further challenge this observation, he removed the fragment and transferred it to another rabbit. In two weeks he observed a duplicate performance. In one case, he reimplanted tlle saw.e ItOOth fragment in 100 rabbits, each in succession dying, from the same disease that the hwnan had had. In most experimental cases he transferred the fragment 30 times. HOWE'S PAPER-THE DENTAL ASSOCIATION FIGHTS BACK As obvious as the consequences were, dentists persisted in placing root canal fillings. This, of course, caused a hot argument among dentists, and soon Percy R. A:owe pub lished a paper in the Journal ofthe National Dental Association rejecting Price's fmdings. Howe injected large amounts of the bacteria streptococcus into rabbits, and found no adverse reaction. This 1920 publication is still used as proof that root-fllied teeth are not hamrJul to hwnans. In what way did Price show that Howe's paper was wrong? In looking for a reason for the differepce between Howe's findings and his own, Price AUGUST -SEPT~MBER 1994