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Comment by fourstar | Hacker News Reader

You can thank the ADA for that.

Novamin is a bioglass that is fortified in Sensodyne, which coats the enamel (a fluoride rival, but better), and was sold to GSK. After that, it suddenly disappeared from shelves in the US.

You can still buy it online (it ships mainly from Europe), but not in the stores.

It's all one big racket.

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I used to watch Shark Tank a lot, and they talk about this with patented products. That a big company will buy out a better solution just to shelf it because the current solution is more profitable. As a person that just spent $10k on oral care the past year this makes me incredibly sad and angry. Gov't is already so cheap that we (US) have fluoride in our water, that was planned to be cheap dental care =(.

I understand the need for IP to make the investment worthwhile. But when buying it out like this, it should be a use it or lose it situation with the patent. Depriving people of a better solution to make a profit ain't right.

> Gov't is already so cheap that we (US) have fluoride in our water, that was planned to be cheap dental care =(.

To understand you correctly, do you think the fluoride is a bad thing? IIRC fluoridated water is amongst the best bang for the buck you can do for healthy teeth, with no downside that I'm aware of (?)

I was under the impression that no one has ever shown that drinking fluoride does much for your teeth: it doesn't have a systemic effect; if you soak your teeth in concentrated fluoride that helps (though we might be overdoing it now in the US for children: tons of cases of teeth with floirinosis; I have some friends who clearly have this problem... but for adults it is great), but the momentary contact of the extremely small concentration of flouride in drinking water can only do harm as it ends up in other parts of your body... and we also know it does harm, the only question is whether there is enough in your water for the harm to be noticeable.

At least you can find it on Amazon. Its pricey, but available.

https://www.amazon.com/Sensodyne-Repair-Protect-Whitening-To...

This is really interesting. Can you cite any research on how effective this variant of Sensodyne is or might be?

That's where I get mine.

(Living in continental Europe) That's funny. After reading your comment I went to the grocery store and found that brand and that 'model'. As I never know which kind of toothpaste I should buy I am eager to see if I am going to like this one.

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