There is a conflict of interest when dentists advise on tooth care.

"Scholarships available" I am so tired of that argument. Yeah school is free, that why the country is drowning in student loan debt. Besides that ti doesn't matter who's paying for it, the debt still has to be paid. And beyond the cost is the time. Which again even if it's free is extremely limiting. The restrictions in place contribute to the conflict of interest, why those restriction exist is irrelevant. Having a broken radiator is not like being in screaming agony from an abscess. They don't put you on narcotics when your fan belt snaps. There are no tooth repair option at walmart, period. There are stop gaps to delay your dentist appointment and the only reason you would delay something like that is because of the expense or fear. And even if I have the dental skill I'm still most likely going to have to go to the dentist. The plasma innovation is a surgical one and is not related to conflict of interest because that innovation only applies after the teeth have failed to the point of surgery. And Oral surgery is not dentistry, its oral surgery, hence the alternate name. Oral surgeon are not dentists, they are surgeons that specialize in the mouth, surgeons have no conflict of interest like dentists, if at all. The assumption that regulation equals safety is a debate in and of itself, one could easily argue intense regulation is a blight on safety in the long term by inhibiting innovation. Did you not state that dentist have a free market? So which is it? They are totally regulated and safe or the market weeds out ones that are not. Mexico has laws against incompetence in the field of medicine just like every other developed country. It's not a desert full of mud huts and savages you know. I don't know, usually when I'm in excruciating pain I don't stop to run a back ground check. Being poor I don't have many "elective" procedures done. Assuming the American way is the best way does make you ethnocentric and elitist. Prove that the Mexican system is less effective. If anything I'd say it's more effective against incompetence because the Mexican judicial system is quite harsh compared to ours. you screw up someone's face you might get harsh jail time there, not a law suit. I'm ignoring your weird tangent on racism, I was speaking to the potential claim that Mexicans make lousy dentists. "If dentists did not fix problems with teeth, there would not be any dentists for very long." Do you know that having teeth pulled was once done at your local barber, along with blood letting? Even tribal villages have someone that would pry teeth out if needed. People put up with what they have available, because to do nothing is torturous, and they have no concept of what the alternative could be. Dentists tell us "sorry, this is just the way it is" and we have to trust them. Compared to the advance of medicine dentistry is hardly advancing at all as judged by change of basic approach. We recently transplanted a whole face. What dramatic advances have happened in dentistry recently? Virtually every medical field except density has had remarkable visible progress in the past 10 years. So if tooth decay is so well understood why can't it be cured or utterly prevented? You know what else we understand? Polio. Small pox. Leprosy. Yellow fever. Malaria. I respect Wikipedia as a source. If tooth decay is well understood which I grant, then the lack of a cure could indicate a lack of interest in a real cure. I mean really, tooth care amounts to poison baths and scraping. I think we should be able to do better. I don't blame dentists for causing tooth decay I blame dentists for not presenting better alternatives of prevention and repair. Yeah they've told us not to eat sugar, and heart doctors tell us not to eat fat, but they still go right on increasing the quality of heart care, so effectively in fact that the life expectancy continues to rise. I don't think you understand the word innovate. Telling me not to crash on my bike to prevent head injury is not an innovation. A helmet is. "This arguement is only good for tooth decay." Yeah, and that's the topic of this debate. (Spell check man, I'm not stabbing, seriously, I spell SO badly unaided, it'll cost you votes. People are stupid generally and think lack of spelling skill equals a lack of intellect which is as absurd as using Japanese fluency as an intelligence indicator.) The government watching, is not good enough, they are politicians and bureaucrats, they know about as much about dentistry as I do, they have to hire people, dentists. Even if those dentists are completely honest and doing their level best, which I suspect they are in the vast majority of cases, that's only a prevention of negative pressure. The nature the this conflict of interest can be equally exploited by inaction. So long as everyone agrees to not innovate the money will flow in, this is not a crime, or incompetence, it's just shady. The government sets no regular goals for innovation. "Proving that the entire industry is on the up and up has nothing to do with this debate. You cannot attempt to re-define or widen the terms of the debate after you have posted them." I've already won the original debate, we're arguing about whether or not dentists have exploited the conflict of interest, not that the conflict exists. By arguing that they do not exploit it you already have implied that the conflict is there. By noted the need for regulation you note the conflict's existence. "I simply have to prove that a conflict of interest does not exist when dentists as a professional body advise on tooth care." That's not what you've been arguing. Can a dentist profit from failing to innovate, yes or no? Can a dentist convince a patient that an improper course of action is the proper one, yes or no? Can a dentist blame his patent convincingly for his own failure, yes or no? Do dentists make money from tooth decay, yes or no? There is a conflict, and you know it.