Horrific Tooth Trade Is Alive

Horrific Tooth Trade Is Alive

Dental students may be inadvertently buying black market teeth for their phantom head studies, according to IFL Science.

And students are laying themselves open to the possibility that they may actually be purchasing teeth potentially robbed from graves.

The potentially gruesome trade was brought to the attention of The Tooth Bank, an online organisation that brings dentists and students together so that the latter can source legally collected teeth, donated by practising dentists and oral surgeons.

A dental student told The Tooth Bank of his disquiet after ordering teeth from an online company.  The package of 50 teeth that he received were surrounded by decorations arranged in a floral arrangement. It’s thought that the unusual packaging meant that the package of teeth would escape close scrutiny when imported into the United States.

The unnamed student didn’t identify the company they dealt with but when the teeth arrived and saw the arrangement, the student said “They freaked me out a bit,” adding “It seems like this might be some kind of black-market scam.”

A simple search by GDPUK found that sets of human teeth could be easily purchased from one popular UK online site. One trader offered twenty-five varied teeth for just over £100.

The goods description was riddled with spelling errors and persistently referring to plural teeth as ‘tooth.’  Another website based in North America, under a different company name, advertised ‘A SET OF 50 REAL HUMAN TOOTH’ (sic) and carried an identical sales blurb, complete with the same glaring, identical spelling errors. That website appeared to have an almost limitless supply of teeth for sale, both virgin and with cavities.

While there is no suggestion that either company above is involved in illegal sourcing or is related to the dental student’s concerns, but neither company gave any indication as to where their specimens came from.

It is thought that some impoverished individuals may be ‘donating’ apparently healthy teeth,  in exchange for money.

The Tooth Bank is running a campaign to end illicit trade in teeth.  The Tooth Bank claims that the company which sent the teeth in a box of artwork to the whistleblowing student did it “all to avoid postal inspection” when they arrive in the US, says IFL Science.

IFL Science wrote "What these students don’t realize is how these teeth are being sourced," Brett Becker, co-director of donor relations at Tooth Bank said in a YouTube video showing the floral display. "Even though exporting teeth from India and China was outlawed decades ago, black markets for these exports remain in operation today. These otherwise healthy teeth are often sourced by manipulating the impoverished, and even through grave robbing."

GDPUK saw the YouTube video that The Tooth Bank posted, and it is quite disturbing.  Teeth were amateurishly distributed among gold coloured ‘floral decorations’ in poor packaging. A note inside the package said “Hi the tooth parcel has arrived usa and you will receive them soon.Further in order to avoid loss of teeth due to postal inspection we have attached all teeth to a cardboard with fevicol.It will look like a beautiful picture.” (Sic)

GDPUK approached one online company supplying human teeth, undercover. 

The company was asked directly where it sourced its supply of teeth.  In a brief email reply, an unnamed  representative of the company wrote “Hi we source teeth from canada,malaysia,srilanka and india” (sic)

James Felton, the journalist and author who wrote the piece for IFL joked about the long-held practice of dental students collecting their own phantom head tooth specimens. “For years – depending on the institution of course – dentists around the world have had to source their own teeth to practice on. Like how you have to provide your own stationery if you take psychology, but it’s human molars.”

"In the eighties, we had to collect our own extracted teeth so they could be set into a Phantom Head," dentist Ollie Jupes told IFL Science, explaining that they would literally have to go around dental practices with a bucket like trick or treaters but for human teeth. "It all felt a little bit Burke and Hare and I was uncomfortable doing it. Being a mature student, I manned up to the task and sent my wife to do it instead."

India outlawed the export of human parts in 1985 when a dealer was caught selling over 1,500 child skeletons of unknown origin, which raised concerns that people may have been murdered to feed the supply chain. Illegal trade is still thought to continue in India. 

GDPUK has an article on Gaining Consent for Using Teeth for Educational Purposes in the UK

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