
Teeth
The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America
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Narrated by:
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Suehyla El'Attar
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By:
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Mary Otto
"Show me your teeth," the great naturalist Georges Cuvier is credited with saying, "and I will tell you who you are." In this shattering new work, veteran health journalist Mary Otto looks inside America's mouth, revealing unsettling truths about our unequal society.
Teeth takes listeners on a disturbing journey into America's silent epidemic of oral disease, exposing the hidden connections between tooth decay and stunted job prospects, low educational achievement, social mobility, and the troubling state of our public health. Otto's subjects include the pioneering dentist who made Shirley Temple and Judy Garland's teeth sparkle on the silver screen and helped create the all-American image of "pearly whites"; Deamonte Driver, the young Maryland boy whose tragic death from an abscessed tooth sparked congressional hearings; and a marketing guru who offers advice to dentists on how to push new and expensive treatments and how to keep Medicaid patients at bay.
In one of its most disturbing findings, Teeth reveals that toothaches are not an occasional inconvenience, but rather a chronic reality for millions of people, including disproportionate numbers of the elderly and people of color. Many people, Otto reveals, resort to prayer to counteract the uniquely devastating effects of dental pain.
Otto also goes back in time to understand the roots of our predicament in the history of dentistry, showing how it became separated from mainstream medicine, despite a century of growing evidence that oral health and general bodily health are closely related.
Muckraking and paradigm-shifting, Teeth exposes for the first time the extent and meaning of our oral health crisis. It joins the small shelf of books that change the way we view society and ourselves - and will spark an urgent conversation about why our teeth matter.
©2017 Mary Otto (P)2017 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...




















Critic reviews
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Otto's book is a flawed but significant exploration of the wait times and poor care, the "dental deserts" and inequality, and ultimately the lives lost because of the United States' addiction to applying free- market principles to dental care. I say the book is flawed because Otto seems to lay most of the blame at the feet of dentists themselves, and I'm not convinced that's fair. After one or two grudging admissions that dental school costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and dentists mostly have large student loans to pay, she portrays most dentists in her book as moustache-twirling profit-chasers who refuse services to children because they don't like poor people cluttering up their waiting rooms. Even If her negative depiction of American dentists is accurate, she needed to do more to justify it to the reader than to cherry-pick a few quotations--as it is, she just sounds biased.
The other main flaw is organization (or lack thereof). The book reads like a collection of articles rather than chapters that are organized to acheive some end, and thus some information is repeated and the book is unable to present a cohesive message more insightful than"the dental system in our country is broken." For all its shortcomings, though, the book taught me a lot that I didn't know, and it certainly does draw attention to a serious, dangerous inequality in a country that is supposed to believe that everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
I won't make excuses for the narrator, though: she's annoying. The tone of her voice is nice, but the way she reads is like the vocal equivalent of casting one's eyes heavenward in horror. And don't even get me started on the accents she fabricates for quotation.
I wish I'd read this book the old-fashioned way instead of as an audiobook because it at least draws attention to a serious problem in our country that most of us know little about. I was drawn to this book because I recently learned that a childhood teacher of mine was in the hospital because of sudden paralysis. The cause? An abscessed tooth. My hometown is in a "dental desert" where the only dentists who accept the insurance that state employees have are 70 miles away or have a wait time of months to get an appointment. It's pretty bad when the American dental system is outclassed by that of countries of the former Yugoslavia.
Content everyone should know; dismal narration
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This makes Teeth a truly captivating listen as I find that I'm not alone in feeling under the gun. In the book you'll find forays into those compelled to seek cosmetic dentistry, those compelled to simply hope for the best in buying pain medication as opposed to antibiotics they can't afford.
I can see where the book might anger those who decry Socialism! Socialism! But the book's many anecdotes are harrowing, and really: You don't find the well-heeled sporting rotting teeth. I urge listening to the book as it's an eye-opener and it expands ones awareness of the world that is around us, what the masses go through (do YOU want your restaurant hostess flashing a brown smile with gaps where teeth used to be? Is that who you want welcoming you into your doctor's office or serving your food?).
Teeth could've been edited some as it can be a bit repetitive, plus it relies heavily on Maryland's practices, plus there's quite a bit on the history of dentistry that can go on a bit too long. Still, it's a definitely worthwhile listen. By the way, I gave the narration only three stars because I thought El'Attar was a tad too enthusiastic, and you can sometimes hear the booing and jeering in her voice, which I don't need if the content of the book carries it without such additions.
Worth the time, worth the credit.
The Mouth--The Body, The Wallet, The Class Lines
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The Struggle is Real
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Good information
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Good listen about why dental covg separate
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Very good read
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Sad, Compelling, Hopeful - A Must Read/Listen
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Better than an apple a day.
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We all know dental should be a part of your medical care even though it never is. Interesting history on the subject! And info about where it’s going next.
Great ideas that no one is willing to fund
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If the narrator would stop trying to do voices or add her own emphasis to certain sections, the book would be more clear, less choppy, and actually enjoyable. As it is, listening to some sections is almost unbearable. Had to turn this off during a long drive because I just couldn’t handle it anymore.
Awful Narration
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