The Dangers of Root Canals

Dr. Weeks’ Comment: Here is the argument by biological dentists who are concerned with the alleged problems of root canals.

Dangers of Conventional Root Canals

“I’ve been a dentist for over 40 years. I have never seen a cancer without an oral infection… www.rooted.tv …look at the data. No need to buy the DVD though that is very graphic. All root canals are infected and toxic” Graeme Munro-Hall, BDS (dentist), FIAOMT, www.munro-hallclinic.com, 6/13/11

“infections persist for years without the patient’s knowledge…toxins leak out and depress …immune system….Weston Price…former Dir. of Research for the Am. Dental Assn. [14 years] [found] that if teeth that have had root canals are removed from patients suffering from kidney and heart disease, these diseases will resolve in most cases. Moreover, implanting these teeth in animals results in the animals developing the same kind of disease found in the person from whom the tooth was taken. Dr. Price found that toxins seeping out of the root canals can cause systemic diseases of the heart, kidney, uterus, and nervous and endocrine systems…research has demonstrated that 100 percent of all root canals result in residual infection” (Alternative Medicine, BurtonGoldberg.com, 1993, pp. 81-83).

“Dr. Price observed that angina pectoris, phlebitis, hypertension, heart block, anemia, and inflammation of the heart muscle are frequent side effects of root canal therapy….he would sometimes see heart patients with outwardly normal-appearing root canal teeth resolve most or all of their symptoms upon removal of those dead teeth [Hal A. Huggins, DDS, _The Price of Root Canals_, 1994]

“….research shows that dental infections are behind hardening of arteries, heart attacks, strokes, and spontaneous preterm births” (Morton Walker, DPM [1999] _Elements of Danger: Protect Yourself Against the Hazards of Modern Dentistry_, Hampton Roads, p. 40).

“Although her (root filled) tooth looked fine, [Price] advised this arthritic patient, to have it extracted…All dentists know that sometimes arthritis and other illnesses clear up if bad teeth are extracted. However, in this case, all of her teeth appeared in satisfactory condition and the one containing this root canal filling showed no evidence or symptoms of infection. Besides, it looked normal on x-ray pictures. Immediately after Dr. Price extracted the tooth he…embedded her tooth under the skin of a rabbit. In two days the rabbit developed the same kind of crippling arthritis…in ten days it died. The patient made a successful recovery…could then walk without a cane and could even do fine needlework….he repeated this procedure many hundreds of times. He later implanted only a portion of the tooth to see if that produced the same results. It did. He then dried the tooth, ground it into powder and injected a tiny bit into several rabbits. Same results, this time producing the same symptoms in multiple animals. Dr. Price eventually grew cultures of the bacteria and injected them into the animals…He put the solution containing the bacteria through a filter small enough to catch the bacteria. So when he injected the resulting liquid it was free of any infecting bacteria. Did the test animals develop the illness? Yes. The only explanation was that the liquid had to contain toxins from the bacteria….injecting half the animals with the toxin-containing liquid and half of them with the bacteria….the group injected with the toxins got sicker and died sooner….the rabbits [mostly] develop[ed] the same disease the patient had…Only occasionally did a rabbit develop a different disease — and then the pathology would be quite similar, in a different location”

George E. Meinig, DDS, FACD, _Root Canal Cover Up: A Founder of the Association of Root Canal Specialists Discovers Evidence That Root Canals Damage Your Health_

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/11/16/why-you-should-avoid-root-canals-like-the-plague.aspx

“In our DNA laboratory…the sterile root canals…[of] 700 that we have tested…[all] 700 are contaminated with some of the world’s worst bacterial, the ones that give the worst diseases” DrHuggins.com (1 of the top holistic dentists), 2012

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlPxVilvTNs&feature=relmfu)

“Cavitations are infected areas in bone surrounding the roots of teeth. They usually come from infected matter in root canalled teeth. When a [dentist] does root canal therapy (RCT) s/he sterilizes and fills the vertical pulp canal – about an inch long – and leaves infected the approximate 3 miles of dentinal tubules that cannot yet be treated….full of infection – that will continue to release toxins, viruses, etc. into the blood stream for the rest of your life….Infections from this source affects your entire immune system…. The infection exudes from the root to the supporting jaw-bone….I wrote the Forward to…George Meinig[”˜s] _The Root Canal Cover-Up_” Jerry Mittelman, DDS, FAPM, Editor, Holistic Dental Digest; “For…our report `Can Root Canals Make You Sick?’” email jmittelman@nyc.rr.com and include your mailing address.

“I have never seen a healthy root canal; they all create disease in the body. Read `Root Canal Cover-Up Exposed’ by [dentist] George Meinig. I teach dentists how to nurse an abscessed tooth back to health without doing root canals“ Lee Cowden, M.D. (www.academycim.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=101; 1 of the physicians I most respect), 8/3/10

_The Roots of Disease: Connecting Dentistry and Medicine_ by “dental surgeon, Dr. Robert Kulacz, and a cardiologist, [www.TomLevyMD.com]….found that the removal of, and complete healing of, sites of infective dental toxicity can often result in seemingly near-miraculous improvement….While infective dental toxicity occurs in multiple settings, including…dental implants, cavitations, abscessed teeth, and periodontal disease…root-canal treated teeth do the greatest…damage to the health and immune systems of the greatest number of people…immune system `collapse’ will often occur years after…root canal procedure”

http://bookstore.xlibris.com/Products/SKU-0014557002/The-Roots-of-Disease.aspx

“tested 5000 root canals and 100% were all infected, and by some measure very toxic… says root canals are the number 1 cause of both cancer and heart attacks”

“[Not] everyone [with] a root canal [is] made ill by it….every root canal filling does leak and bacteria do invade the structure. But the variable factor is the strength of the person’s immune system” George Meinig, DDS

(http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/11/16/why-you-should-avoid-root-canals-like-the-plague.aspx)

"I have had a number of patients with breast cancer, all of whom had root canals on the tooth related to the breast area on the associated energy meridian." John Diamond, M.D. (www.johndiamondmd.com)

“A German Univ. study (prior to 2010) reportedly found that 95% of breast cancer patients have “dental involvement.”

Daniel G. Clark, MD (www.IPTforCancer.com/conference [2010]) reported having found a large correlation between root canals (and cavitations) and cancer.

“Dr. Robert Jones…found…in a five-year study of 300 breast cancer cases: 93 percent of women with breast cancer had root canals

[www.quantumcancermanagement.com/oral-pathology-breast-cancer.html (plausible statistic but questionable source)]….Josef Issels [M.D.] reported that, in his 40 years of treating `terminal’ cancer patients, 97 percent…had root canals”

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/02/18/dangers-of-root-canaled-teeth.aspx?e_cid=20120218_DNL_art_1

Note: I trust Dr. Rau but question whether he in fact made the following statements (reportedly from at a Belgium conference in 2004):

“study of breast cancer patients and I found that over 98% had a disturbance on the stomach meridian….In about 150 cases of women with breast cancer, we only had 3 patients who did not have a root canal in a tooth that belongs to the stomach meridian…So we did a study of women in the same age range without breast cancer, without chronic diseases, and only 30% of that group had root canals” Thomas Rau, M.D., Chief Medical Dir., Paracelsus Clinic, www.beating-cancer-gently.com/nl89.html

“if you have…root canal on the stomach meridian…6th tooth from the front…blockage which can disturb the breast. I have seen about 50 [breast cancer patients]…all…had a blockage on the tooth belonging to the stomach meridian. Mostly…cavitation problems after extraction of the teeth which was not done correctly or it was a root canal….We saw similar things also in prostate cancer….front teeth” Thomas Rau, M.D.

www.arthritistrust.org/Articles/Interview%20With%20Thomas%20Rau%20M.D.pdf

http://curezone.com/diseases/cancer/testimonials/Arthritis_DENTAL_INFECTION_and_CANCER.asp

(A tooth-meridian chart is at www.drwolfe.com/html/Teeth-chart.html)

“Root canals are the most predictable and profitable procedure in dentistry. Dentists who do not do endo lose on the average $90,000!”

http://www.thewealthydentist.com/blog/1877/root-canals-are-the-most-profitable-procedure-in-dentistry-video/

ANECDOTES:

“headaches for 20+ years….5 root canals….She had them extracted…dentist had to open all the windows…The smell was of death….After they were removed…headaches were gone for good.” www.notdoctors.com

“I developed ovarian cancer six months after my first root canal….I cracked a tooth…infection in my gums. That led to a second root canal. My tumor marker immediately doubled, and tumors jumped in size, etc. Had the teeth extracted. The older one stank, and the second one had a cyst full of pus beneath it. Two months later, my tumor marker is dropping rapidly” RhodaMead@yahoo.com, 6/3/07

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/FlaxSeedOil2/message/45797

“had this last one pulled about 2 weeks ago. Two days later I started 8 days of continuous healing reactions–one right after the other” sharlene908@hotmail.com (cancer patient) 4/4/10, http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/GersonTherapy/message/8884

“man with serious heart problems, mentioned by [www.TomLevyMD.com ?]. He had changed his diet, was juicing, on numerous supplements and saw some improvement but still had serious problems…ONE root canal tooth in his mouth. Well, they removed it, cleaned out the jawbone properly, and immediately he saw his health improve and his atherosclerosis regressed”

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/FlaxSeedOil2/message/87958

“root canal…12 years ago. In the last three years I also had the infection in it and the last one was so bad that my white blood cells dropped….my thyroid nodules are on the side of the tooth, and the meridian from the tooth goes to my colon and on the side where I had…colon cancer….

man in his thirties…was sick and they were trying to find the reason….suddenly died of the heart attack due to a tooth, some kind of bacteria” Dana, dsmills2@yahoo.com, 4/15/12

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/FlaxSeedOil2/message/101230

A nurse colleague of mine knew a lymphoma patient who got her root canals removed, and her lymphoma went into remission. She was also doing homeopathy but reportedly nothing else.

Another anecdote’s at www.caringbridge.org/visit/debbiewylie

For more info on the dangers of conventional root canals,

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/02/18/dangers-of-root-canaled-teeth.aspx?e_cid=20120218_DNL_art_1#_edniv (minimal documentation)

www.quantumcancermanagement.com/dental-toxins-cancer-research.html (discusses the science, but questionable credibility)

For interviews w/George Meinig, DDS:

http://www.tldp.com/issue/157-8/157rootc.htm

http://rheumatic.org/teeth.htm

www.curezone.com/dental/root_canal.asp (also at http://www.whale.to/d/meinig.html)

For info on biological root canals (much safer than conventional root canals),

http://www.nihadc.com/biological-dentistry/biological-root-canal.html

www.mgoldmandds.com/rctchoices.htm (scroll down to discussion of calcium hydroxide)

Some holistic dentists offer biological root canals. To find a good holistic dentist,