VEN (NEW YORK) — Oral electro-galvanism.  Who knew?   Place dissimilar metals in your mouth — crowns, fillings, bridges, titanium implants — and with your saliva serving as the requisite electrolyte, you too can be a human battery!

Or so say the small but growing community of biological dentists, who argue that restorative dentistry should be as much concerned about the potentially toxic effects of metals on the human body as they are on the restoration’s mechanical properties (read more here).

But not so fast says VEN‘s Senior Dental Consultant Dr. Benjamin Farb.

“Many dentists have second homes, large sailboats, money in offshore accounts,  children in college, and expensive country club memberships.

“Not to mention multiple divorce settlements, paternity suits,  drug and alcohol addictions, and though we don’t like to talk about it, pending sexual harassment lawsuits — some frivolous — brought by their buxom, size 0-6 secretaries and dental hygienists with names like Barbie, Tiffany and Crystal.

“In that kind of heightened sexually-charged environment, who has time to worry about oral electro-galvanism?  I mean we’re all adults living in the real world, for God’s sake!

 “If I just spent 15 thousand dollars on a tennis bracelet to keep my hygienist from calling my wife, am I going to say no to a gold crown placed next to an amalgam filling?  Or recommend that a patient undergo a MELISA test before I set a titanium implant?

“In the words of Chad Ochocinco — Child, Please!“