THE TRUTH ABOUT TOOTHPASTE
Harding, T. Swann
The Truth About Toothpaste By T. SWANN HARDING ORDINARILY I do not read advertisements, but occasionally they attract my attention. Somehow those of dentifrices which claim to make your teeth...
...It would remove or conquer mouth bacteria and get results other toothpastes could not accomplish...
...It is certain an overwhelming majority of them regard therapeutic claims for a dentifrice as per se false...
...Once the manufacturers saw the light and backed price maintenance that, and big advertising, brought profits of $3,000,000 in 1943 as against a shabby little $600,000 only six years ago...
...Those mucin plaques were described as "the source of most tooth troubles...
...The court refused to find the article "misleading" according to law...
...Ipana is a cosmetic agent neither necessary nor desirable for gum massage...
...My earliest recollection of Pepsodent concerns something that appeared in the Journal of Dental Research in 1919...
...The claimants admitted this charge in court...
...Actually dentifrices play a minor part in keeping teeth clean...
...Let us finally glance at a tube of Ipana...
...Why had it slipped ? Because the makers failed to play ball with those who favored fair trade laws...
...Most of them are of conventional composition...
...The best and safest mouthwash or dentifrice is a teaspoonful of salt in a pint of water with a bit of sodium bicarbonate added...
...Compare that with the previous wild claims and draw your own conclusions before Ipana is considered...
...83 Are Not Too Bad' The dental journal wound up by pointing out that Ipana contained glycerine, gums, soaps, calcium carbonate, and flavor...
...As early as 1917 Gies had shown Pepsodent to be an acid paste containing an enzyme that acted feebly like pepsin...
...The next year in the same journal Gies tore into Bulletin No...
...We read: "In the opinion of the Council, such willingness does not constitute adequate protection of the public...
...The Dental Council denounced the whole advertising campaign as "preposterous," and as neither credible nor logical...
...Kolynos has been marketed in accordance with Council of the Dental Association rules since acceptance in 1939...
...Xolynos'Cools Off So in 1939 the Federal Trade Commission told the makers to quit making these claims, for none of them could be sustained...
...The curative power of all dentifrices is nonexistent and the cleansing power has long been grossly exaggerated...
...In short, said Gies, "Pepsodent is put on the market in utter ignorance of the dental and biochemical principles involved, or with intent to mislead the multitude that may usually be deceived by plausible advertisements...
...It was essentially a mixture of soap and chalk with flavoring materials, binding agents, and glycerine...
...This bulletin presumed to tell how pepsin could be determined but, according to Gies, it was a pure mass of fallacies...
...A further complaint followed in 1938...
...The answer will be found in Complaint 4861 to the Federal Trade Commission, Oct...
...It has cleansing properties just about like those of soap, and it is no more irritating than soap...
...Thus, purely extraneous factors determined sales, not the quality of the product at all...
...Yet the company itself had earlier admitted the truth of many of the charges* in the complaint...
...Irium' And Soap Hopping lightly to the Journal of the American Dental Association for November, 1939 we note that something new must have been added...
...But its makers tolerated retail price cutting, so a boycott of Pepsodent was started in California and spread all over...
...21, 1942, asserting that Ipana does not produce a beautiful smile, prevent pink toothbrush, remove yellowish tints, and whiten teeth not normally white, impart health when massaged into soft, tender gums, aid the gum troubles we acquire by eating soft, creamy foods, nor have the universal commendation of dentists...
...It was also said to kill millions of germs which cause ailments of the teeth and gums and to keep the whole oral cavity thoroughly hygienic by its germicidal and antiseptic actions...
...The Association said there was no evidence that a toothpaste containing betanaphthol (maiden name for Ziratol ?) and soap, as did Ipana, would prevent or overcome Vincent's disease, gingivitis, pyorrhea, or root infection, while the term "pink tooth brush" was "ridiculous" because "there is no recognized entity in dentistry known as pink tooth brush...
...Many different local or general causes can produce bleeding of the gums...
...This concerned the claim to restore natural color and to brighten discolored teeth, also other claims that Kolynos was more economical than competing dentifrices and more certain to accomplish good results...
...But it is also true you would get along quite as well by using an ordinary toothpaste with a little soap in it...
...The "claims advanced for the product are unwarranted and misleading...
...Somehow those of dentifrices which claim to make your teeth ghastly white like tombstones, so that-they will glow in the dark, have an especial fascination for me...
...4 issued by the Pepsodent Laboratories...
...Now, however, the Ipana manufacturers denied the complaints, saying that a dentifrice is not a cosmetic, within the meaning of the food, drug, and cosmetic act, declaring part of the advertising quoted was unfair to the whole, and implying that Ipana had been the victim of a dastardly attack...
...A complaint to the Federal Trade Commission in 1937 said, however, that all these claims were false or misleading...
...It was by William J. Gies and bore the title: "Ancient History that Commercial Dental Journals Continue to Ignore...
...So it was not surprising that in about three years the Federal Trade Commission got around to telling the makers to quit advertising that the use of Ipana and gum massage would prevent the user from becoming a "dental cripple.'' The makers chastely agreed to this...
...But Gies' remarked research had already shown it had no such power, that it contained little pepsin, and that even that could not get to, work digesting tooth plaques in the mouth...
...It is doubtful that a majority of dentists use or recommend Ipana...
...Dental journals themselves then carried advertisements to the effect that "The whole object of Pepsodent is to dissolve the film," for this dentifrice was supposed, by popular myth, to "attack the plaques with pepsin...
...Fortunately in 1936 the makers of Pepsodent came humbly to the National Retail Druggists Association with a $25,000 check and pledged support of fair trade laws...
...He said that such a dentifrice would, when used, increase both the volume and the alkalinity of the saliva...
...Well, then, there's Kolynos...
...Originally, says Business Week, Pepsodent gained sales through extensive advertising, the most extensive in the industry...
...That changed things...
...About a thousand dentifrices are marketed in the United States, of which about 83 are listed by the American Dental Association as not too, too bad...
...Well, the upshot was the dental association accepted Pepsodent advertising, giving it a clean bill of health...
...Some disillusioned brother may arise at this point to ask how dentifrices keep public favor...
...Today Ipana is not acceptable because of its still used questionable advertising claims...
...By now Ziratol or Siratol had been dropped from the ingredients...
...Irium" just sounds more impressive...
...Indeed it was said to be a "proteolytic" toothpaste or a "dental mucin digestant...
...This is a detergent compatible with hard water...
...Some primitive peoples subsist on diets uncontami-nated by civilized processing, yet have gingivitis and rotten teeth...
...On June 19, 1942, a Food and Drug Administration Notice of Judgment announced that seizures of Pepsodent had been made because the tubes occupied so little spjice in the cartons that each carton could have held two tubes...
...It claimed to erase or remove stain and tartar and to whiten teeth several shades in a few days by cleaning down to the white enamel without injury...
...The value of iodine in a dentifrice was being stressed...
...At once, also in 1937, the American Dental Association began to wonder in its journal what claims Ipana would make next...
...In 1943 a shipment of Ipana was seized by the Government also because the tubes filled only 23 per cent of the space in the cartons and the company had to repackage...
...Pepsodent was now reputed to contain "irium," really alkyl sulfate of the general formula ROS03H, if you are particular about technical details...
...For answer refer to Business Week for May 13, 1944, wherein we read that Pepsodent rode to good income first on Amos and Andy, later on Bob Hope...
...Well, the upshot of it was, there was Pepsodent claiming to "end plaque" and "save the teeth...
...None of them has demonstrated therapeutic value...
...So used, however, it could do no digestion as pepsin requires an acid medium in which to work...
...The latter had now put it first in sales for the first time during nine long years...
...When Kolynos at length became acceptable to the American Dental Association, after it had been cleaned and polished, and ugly discolorations removed by the Federal Trade Commission, it placed the following chastely truthful advertisement in the Journal of the American Medical Association: "Kolynos Dental Cream is a concentrated dentifrice that contains no added water...
...They can serve only to aid the brush in cleaning already accessible tooth surfaces...
...In its issue for December 1942 the Journal of the American Dental Association remarked on the many innocent victims who wrote in that they had used Ipana and gum massage for three months, as requested, and their gums still bled...
...Since it would be impossible to consider those sections of the American mercantile mythology created by all dentifrices, I shall confine myself in this article to a scant three of them: Pepsodent, Kolynos, and Ipana...
...In its May 1944 issue the Journal of the American Dental Association published certain correspondence it had had with the makers, of Kolynos Dental Cream, which»it thereupon announced had been deleted from Accepted Dental Remedies...
...When used, one-half inch on a dry brush, Kolynos produces a foamy cream in the mouth that assists the brush in cleansing and polishing the teeth without harmful abrasive action...
...But the U. S. Marshall was ordered to destroy it or offer it to a charitable institution...
...In December, 1934, the American Dental Association found claims for Ipana unacceptable because unwarranted and because it was said to contain "Ziratol,"—• "another unacceptable proprietary of secret composition...
...Pepsodent was accepted in 1939 but deleted in 1941 for exaggerated and misleading claims about Irium and attempts to endow this soap substitute with magic virtues it does not possess, also for false claims for film removal...
...They have no chemical or magic power...
...We would do well to cut the amount we pay for toothpaste in half to buy better and smaller brushes...
...In effect the makers promised to make known the formula of Kolynos to the dental Council, if desired, or to give the formula to any dentist who requested it...
Vol. 8 • October 1944 • No. 42
