$13 is Coors Light territory (shudder). I buy Sierra Nevada Pale Ale cases for $26.

I say: don't bother. This is still a long way off as far as I'm concerned, and if your family cares about their kids' teeth, it's still WAY easier to prevent disease in the first place (good diet, brushing and flossing, etc.) than try to replace them through such exotic means.

Invest in fluoride, not test tubes full of baby teeth!

That presupposes the bacteria are alive to reproduce and evolve. If they are not on the teeth, they are not evolving.

As a dentist, you expect me to say thatt your conspiracy theories are bunk; they are.

However, even logically speaking, there's lots that dentists do that isn't simply "drill out decay, fill with something, collect MONEY."

All manner of hygine/periodontal procedures would be unaffected by this inoculation. People still want teeth moved around, want them a different shape, color. Existing dentist have enough crap in peoples' mouths to replace their entire working lives.

Read any dental literature; the most excitement is reserved for procedures that have nothing to do with caries control: implants, new ceramics for crowns/veneers, new bleach techniques, etc.

So, please, no more ADA conspiracy theories; no matter what's out there in terms of prevention, there is a huge gap between what people could do for themselves to prevent decay and how they decide to abuse their bodies.

FWIW, in my practice, when a patient comes to me with that story, it's usually some combination of poor dentistry and/or too much dentistry being performed. I've seen patients who were going to be going to the dentist a lot for the rest of their lives to replace fillings that, when you look at the pre-operative radiographs, probably never needed restorations in the first place.

I promise you, it's not genetic.

If the tooth grows back pure white it would more likely put a lot of money in the pockets of the tooth whitening companies than put them out of business. It's probably going to be a lot less painful and expensive to just whiten the other teeth. I know this can be a problem with porcelain caps on broken teeth. They are so much whiter than the other teeth that it makes your teeth look really bad. So dentists use a combined strategy of whitening the other teeth and staining the cap untill they're about equal.

You really don't want that. The only white part of teeth is enamel. Enamel is a lot like glass: it's very hard, but also very brittle. It doesn't make a very good restorative material. To have a mouth full of enamel with no dentin (the layer of tooth beneath enamel) is to have a mouth full of broken teeth. Many people reading this post have probably experienced a tooth with a filling mysteriously breaking after 15-20 years ... it's because when the filling was placed, the dentin support for the cusp that broke was probably removed, leaving only beautiful white enamel behind.