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Thread: A Decades-old Product Can Stop 80% of Cavities, and the FDA Only Just Now Approved It

  1. #1

    A Decades-old Product Can Stop 80% of Cavities, and the FDA Only Just Now Approved It

    he New York Times has an incredible story on a simple, paint on liquid that stops tooth decay and prevents further cavities:

    Nobody looks forward to having a cavity drilled and filled by a dentist. Now there’s an alternative: an antimicrobial liquid that can be brushed on cavities to stop tooth decay — painlessly.

    The liquid is called silver diamine fluoride, or S.D.F. It’s been used for decades in Japan, but it’s been available in the United States, under the brand name Advantage Arrest, for just about a year.

    The Food and Drug Administration cleared silver diamine fluoride for use as a tooth desensitizer for adults 21 and older. But studies show it can halt the progression of cavities and prevent them, and dentists are increasingly using it off-label for those purposes.
    Ari Armstrong has the right reaction:

    So the Japanese have been using this drill-free treatment for “decades,” yet we in the United States have had to wait until last year to get it. And the only reason we can get it now to treat cavities is that it happens to be allowed as on “off-label” use for what the FDA officially approved it for.
    The Times continues:

    Silver diamine fluoride is already used in hundreds of dental offices. Medicaid patients in Oregon are receiving the treatment, and at least 18 dental schools have started teaching the next generation of pediatric dentists how to use it. …

    The main downside is aesthetic: Silver diamine fluoride blackens the brownish decay on a tooth. That may not matter on a back molar or a baby tooth that will fall out, but some patients are likely to be deterred by the prospect of a dark spot on a visible tooth. …

    [But] “S.D.F. reduces the incidence of new caries and progression of current caries by about 80 percent,” said Dr. Niederman, who is updating an evidence review of silver diamine fluoride published in 2009.
    Fillings, by contrast, do not cure an oral infection.

    But as Armstrong writes the craziest part of the story is this:

    American dentists first started using similar silver-based treatments in the early 1900s. The FDA is literally over a century behind the times.
    ...

    https://fee.org/articles/a-decades-o...ource=facebook
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  3. #2
    The earlier FDA decision brought to you courtesy of the American Dental Assn.

  4. #3
    Looking at the pictures in Google images, I can see why some people would be reluctant to use it.

  5. #4
    I saw an interview with someone related to this product. Doesn't this product stain decay black? I wouldn't want to use it, either.
    #NashvilleStrong

    “I’m a doctor. That’s a baby.”~~~Dr. Manny Sethi

  6. #5

  7. #6
    I wish I could find it over the counter

  8. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by angelatc View Post
    I wish I could find it over the counter
    Can you buy it online from another country?

  9. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by phill4paul View Post
    Can you buy it online from another country?
    Not that I've found. Yet



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  11. #9
    It's still got fluoride - silver is a step in the right direction but adding poison to it.. I'll pass
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