Conclusions: The oral health of US citizens is not better than the English, and there are consistently wider educational and income oral health inequalities in the US compared with England.
I haven’t been able to find numbers to confirm this, but my experience of dentistry in the US is that dentists really push cosmetic and unnecessary treatment. For instance, I consulted my old dentist in the UK after going to the dentist in the US for the first time as I had a huge amount of work prescribed. Her reaction was “that would be illegal here and I would lose my license if I tried that on”. Anecdotal, I know, but given the relative deregulation of medical practice in the US and the much stronger profit motive, I have an innate mistrust of dentists here.
And people wonder about the teeth.
Funny thing is that the teeth thing is another example of misguided American exceptionalism:
I haven’t been able to find numbers to confirm this, but my experience of dentistry in the US is that dentists really push cosmetic and unnecessary treatment. For instance, I consulted my old dentist in the UK after going to the dentist in the US for the first time as I had a huge amount of work prescribed. Her reaction was “that would be illegal here and I would lose my license if I tried that on”. Anecdotal, I know, but given the relative deregulation of medical practice in the US and the much stronger profit motive, I have an innate mistrust of dentists here.
If she did what exactly?
Multiple “preventative” fillings and wisdom teeth extraction that wouldn’t actually address any actual problems. My teeth were fine.
just cos our politicians don't have ghoulish white veneers