Teeth: The Untold Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America

(Hardback)

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Description

'Show me your teeth', the great naturalist George 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 readers on a disturbing journey into the role teeth play in our health and our social mobility. Muckraking and paradigm-shifting, Teeth exposes for the first time the extent and meaning of our oral health crisis.

Reviews

Praise for Teeth:

Winner of the Studs and Ida Terkel Prize

"[Teeth is] . . . more than an exploration of a two-tiered systemit is a call for sweeping, radical change."
New York Times Book Review

[Otto infuses] what could be a mundane topic with quirky history, heart-wrenching real-life stories, and prose that is . . . poetic . . . this harrowing book pulls at the heartstrings. Its a must-read for anyone who cares about public health policy."
Newsday

"With many adults still uninsured, childrens dental care far from universal, and the future of government-supported health care unclear, Ottos sobering report should not go unheeded."
Publishers Weekly

"Ottos well-reported and important book will arouse concern over the fact that dental health, which is so essential to our well-being, gets such short shrift, and, hopefully, help instigate reform."
Booklist

"An astute examination of the complex, insular business of oral health care."
Kirkus Reviews

"Mary Otto hits us right in the faceour teethwith this important book. The lack of dental care for millions of Americans is a national shame. Teeth breaks new ground in the canon of books about poverty. It should be read by anyone concerned about the class divide in the U.S."
Dale Maharidge, author of And Their Children After Them, winner of the 1990 nonfiction Pulitzer Prize

"I cant remember the last time I read a book that so brilliantly yokes physiological, political and cultural systems. Rife with discovery, and a spur to social action, Mary Ottos book is a beautifully readable and essential testament for these times."
Mary Cappello, author of Swallow: Foreign Bodies, Their Ingestion, Inspiration, and the Curious Doctor who Extracted Them

"Mary Otto brings history, policy and painful personal realities together in this compelling and engaging book about our nations highly preventable epidemic of oral disease. Teeth should be read by every policy maker and health professional who believes we can and must act to reduce the current barriers to dental care."
Louis W. Sullivan, MD, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, 19891993, and chairman of the Sullivan Alliance to Transform the Health Professions

"Who eats too much sugar, leading to dental trauma Primarily the poor. Who cannot sleep because of continuing dental pain and no available dental care Primarily the poor. Even with Medicare and Medicaid, dental care has remained a stepchildand these programs are in jeopardy now. The teeth are no match for . . . a life of poverty, Otto says. More teeth failure and its consequences are on their way."
Peter Edelman

"Heres a book that will enlighten you, upset you, and give you hope. I highly recommend it."
Bob Herbert, Distinguished Senior Fellow at Demos and former Op-Ed columnist for the New York Times

"Mesmerizing and important. Mary Ottos unflinching work on the miserable state of oral health in America gnaws at you like a toothache."
Congressman Jamie Raskin (MD-8)

Author Bio

Mary Otto is the oral health topic leader for the Association of Health Care Journalists. She began writing about oral health at the Washington Post, where she worked for eight years covering social issues including health care and poverty. She lives in Washington, D.C.