Teeth, Science, Inflation August 31, 2005January 17, 2017 TEETH Minnetonka Peg: ‘Your post Monday about teeth highlights one issue I’ve never understood. How is it that teeth somehow got excluded from the body? Health insurance covers organs and limbs, skin … but NOT teeth. Yet as the author of that article so well highlights, of course teeth are part of the body and should be included. Personally, I do not think we should have nationalized health care. (Don’t get hysterical, Andrew!) But I do think that for those who truly cannot afford it, we should deliver basic health care to them in a straightforward manner.’ ☞ Sounds like national health care to me — and with dental coverage to boot! Welcome to the Democratic Party. Ed Biebel: ‘Beyond the ‘cosmetic’ aspect of dentistry, poor teeth and gums can have a sizable impact on your overall health. It is depressing to me to think I live in a first world country that doesn’t provide for something as basic as simple dental care.’ ☞ And yet a number of you wrote in to note the condition of British teeth, asking pointedly why, if universal health care is so good, British bicuspids are in such dodgy shape. I don’t know whether the premise of the question is fair, but if it is, the answer may be that the coverage they’re offered is not good enough, or that Brits are even more scared of dentists than we are. Thoughts? SCIENCE From The Guardian: Some of America’s leading scientists have accused Republican politicians of intimidating climate-change experts by placing them under unprecedented scrutiny. . . . The demands in letters sent to the scientists have been compared by some US media commentators to the anti-communist “witch-hunts” pursued by Joe McCarthy in the 1950s. . . . INFLATION Tim Couch: ‘MYM had a neat inflation calculator that showed how much an amount in the past is worth today. Surely the same thing is available on the Internet somewhere. Can you help me find it?’ ☞ Sure.