By Hal A. Huggins, DDS, MS

“You need a root canal!” “Why?”

Do you really “need” a root canal? What are the conventional reasons for performing root canals over the past century?

  • Pain
  • Deep decay that has invaded the nerve chamber
  • Trauma (as in getting hit in the mouth with a baseball bat), and
  • Discomfort of unknown reason

What, exactly, are you getting for your money?

As recently as 1906, Mayo Clinic in conjunction with Weston Price DDS, MS as head of research for the dental association of that time, announced that root canals were a haven for disease-producing bacteria. Six PhDs working with Dr. Price for decades, and a team of microbiologists from Mayo Clinic identified these bacteria.

Dr. Price implanted root canal fragments under the skin of the belly of 60,000 rabbits. Results unequivocally proved that diseases of the humans, traveling in the root canaled teeth, could produce the same disease in the rabbit in a matter of weeks. Heart attacks could be transferred 100 percent percent of the time implicating root canals as one of the primary causes of heart disease.

Root Canals are Breeding Grounds for Bacterial Toxins

Does it surprise you that dentistry has been able to keep this secret for over a century?

Consider the liability. Ask your dentist about this, and watch him/her run, hide, and “fire you as a patient.” Fear of license revocation prevents dentists from disclosing what they have been told does not exist. Dr. Price and Mayo identified dozens of diseases related to bacterial toxins created by bacteria in root canals. If one percent of the people with root canals and subsequent diseases sued their dentist, all the money in the world would be in the hands of lawyers.

Dentists are kept in the dark by conflicting reports by their own associations. Most dental associations say root canals are 97 percent successful, while not defining the term ‘successful.’ The American Association of Endodontists (AAE) says only 90 percent are successful. Back in 1925, Coolidge said 95 percent were successful. The Department of Health and Human Services said in 1984 that there is no way to evaluate the success of a root canal. Burket published that only 42 percent of root canaled teeth were “mechanically” correct in filling the canals. That was in the US. European journals on the topic reported about 30 percent.

Haden published that 87 percent of 1,500 teeth he studied microscopically were contaminated with bacteria. And Okabe published that 72.1 percent of the patients with root canals had bacteremia (i.e. bacteria in the blood that were identical to those found in the root canal tooth).

Most dentists will tell you that a front tooth has a single canal. Dr. Price showed that that same front tooth can have as many as 75 auxiliary canals running from the pulp chamber to the outside of the tooth. Clean and fill 75 canals? Yeah, sure. Especially if you’re not even aware they exist. from Dr Jim Mercola. Go to http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/10/02/dr-huggins-discusses-root-canals.aspx?e_cid=20121002_DNL_art_1