Oral B

[Daxin]

I'd like to know what you all think.

I was recently at the dentist, and we were discussing the implications of celiac disease and certain dental care products. The hygenist was using Oral B Prophy Paste, and some flouride from the same company. Since we caould not determine if they were gluten-free, she used ultra sound to clean my teeth and we left it at that.

When I got back to work, I emailed Oral B and asked them, as we all do, for a list of any of their products that are gluten-free. I got a response that said I was not being specific enough about what product I was asking about. At this point, I called the toll free number to ask and folow up because that repsonse confused me.

I was then told they could not send me a list as that information was proprietry. (I am not looking to make my own toothpaste in my bathtub!) She then checked on the prophy paste, and her response made me laugh, get angry, and hang up..."Prophy Paste is Gluten Free. However, we can not ensure the individual ingredients are Gluten Free." Every other company I call/write is MORE than happy to send a list of stuff I can have. Whay are they being so guarded?

What?????

How can the end stage product be safe if the components may not be???

I will not be purchasing any more of their toothpastes, and have asked my dentist office to try and find a new product we can be sure is safe.

[jenvan]

Interesting... My dentist wanted me to check on the Oral B flouride treatment they use in their office. Maybe I'll just keep skipping it! Their response may just be a CYA, but its pretty shady, so I would probably opt to use something else...

[psawyer]

We all need to get used to hearing more and more of these CYA statements.

What they said, in essence, is that while they believe that the product in question is gluten-free, some of the ingredients are obtained from sources outside their company, and they can not guarantee (read: accept legal responsibility) that an outside supplier's product is not ever contaminated with gluten.

In today's society where anything that goes wrong is somebody else's fault, and there is a lawyer on every corner willing to file suit, all companies are being more and more careful about not exposing themselves to litigation.

[CarlaB]

I went through this with them, too. I posted their response here on another thread ...

It's apparently a CYA statement. I won't buy their products, but I'll use their prophy paste at the dentist. I'm not putting my dentist out because of the jerks at Oral B -- they're more interested in taking care of themselves than their customers.