January 29, 2016

How Many Molars Do You Need, Anyway?

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A few years ago I was at a party in Newport Beach and found myself buttonholed by an elderly dentist who had a real thing for wisdom teeth. He talked my ear off about how the dental profession removed way too many wisdom teeth unnecessarily even though most of them don’t do any harm. I didn’t know anyone else at the party, so I didn’t really mind listening, and by the time he ran down I had to admit that he seemed surprisingly convincing. I didn’t have any personal stake in this since my wisdom teeth were removed long ago,1 but he seemed to make a pretty good case. Then I left the party and forgot about it.

Anyway, the guy’s name was Jay Friedman, and it turns out that he is to wisdom teeth—aka third molars—what I am to lead poisoning and crime. I had no idea at the time. But if you’re curious to read more about this, Rob Wile has you covered. It’s worth noting that lots of dentists think Friedman is full of crap, but it’s also worth noting that apparently more of them are coming around to a somewhat more cautious view of the whole thing. Bottom line: You might want to think twice if your dentist tells you to get your wisdom teeth removed just as a precaution.

1I wasn’t having any particular problems. One of them was slightly impacted, and my dentist figured I might as well get them all taken out. I shrugged and said fine. Nor did I have any problems: a little bit of pain, but not much, and a day or two of eating pudding. I couldn’t figure out why people make such a big deal out of it. I guess some of you had it a lot worse, didn’t you?

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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