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Howard Farran:
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It is just a huge honor today to be podcast interviewing Jacqueline Russo all the way from Delray Beach, Florida and Chris Kammer all the way from Madison, Wisconsin. These guys are founders you know them as AAOSH the Oral Systemic Health the American Academy of Oral Systemic Health AAOSH.
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Jacqueline Russo began her journey in healthcare as a registered nurse and ultimately became a dentist. And enjoyed a private practice in Florida for 15 years. After having health issues of her own, which caused her to retire early in her career as a dentist. She became disillusioned by the main stream medical approach in treating symptoms and not cause of disease.
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She became a voracious student of all things alternative like nutrition, supplementation, genetics, and stress management. As her own health improved, she began coaching clients and noticed that those with periodontal issues had more difficulties returning to overall health.
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She then met Chris Kammer at the inaugural meeting of AAOSH in Madison, Wisconsin and all the pieces start fitting together. She now is a board member for AAOSH, continues her pursuit of knowledge in integrative medicine, and is passionate about sharing the mission of the academy, elevating the profession of dentistry so we can save lives.
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Chris Kammer for more than 20 years has been at the forefront of emerging technologies and ideas in dentistry. And has become one of America's most active advocates for oral systemic approach for disease prevention. He is the founding father of the American Academy of Oral Systemic Health. This organization is partnered with the world class medical experts from the Cleveland Clinic to educate physicians and dental teams on the critical significance of how the health of the mouth impacts the health of the body.
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His work with the oral systemic approach has helped many dental teams and their patients gain increase resistance to chronic diseases including heart disease, stroke, diabetes, some types of cancer, and Alzheimer's, as well as preterm birth and obesity. Dr. Kammer was one of the first clinicians in America to develop a protocol for disease prevention with the oral systemic approach using his comprehensive Gums of Steel Program. He has helped bring the practice of oral systemics from its early philosophical stage to its current wide spread recognition as important healing approach that integrates medicine and dentistry and has the studies and results to back it up.
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Dr. Kammer's work has been presented at numerous dental conferences, conventions, and seminars and has been published in leading dental journals. He has also been a chief dental consultant for Readers Digest. Has been quoted in many publications including USA Today, the New York Times, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, and Woman's Day. He was featured on ABC World News tonight with Diane Sawyer as her person of the week. He has also appeared widely on national television and radio programs including the Today Show, Fox and Friends, CBS MarketWatch, CNN, NPR, Montel Williams, and even Late Night with David Letterman and American Idol.
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God dang Chris. You've done more dental advertising than the American Dental Association.
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Chris Kammer:
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Just in that intro alone. We've got to shorten that.
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Howard Farran:
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So did you think of the Gums of Steel program while you were doing the Buns of Steel workout?
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Chris Kammer:
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No, but you're close. Because there's some steel images. There's Abs of Steel, Buns of Steel, there's the Man of Steel. And I just thought gums needed that healthy robust image that we really don't give them and so it just sounded like a nice fit. So I did steal from the Man of Steel, Buns of Steel, Abs of Steels ... Yeah.
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Howard Farran:
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You know, I think this is gonna take off because the insurance companies ... The hardest data they've got ... I mean I know you've listed all these diseases it's connected to, but when you talk to insurance CEOs, they are convinced that the most expensive thing that can happen to one of their insured people is when you go in and have a preterm one pound preemie, and they totally see the data that gingivitis and periodontal disease and pregnancy gingivitis ... And man, if they could get every one of their pregnant patients in for regular cleanings and just save one preemie, one one pound baby, it's a million bucks savings.
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Do you think that is the first hardcore connection? Or do you think it's that top selling book, Beating the Heart Attack Gene? Heart attacks kill, you know, 500,000 people and that's just in divorce court each year. Do you think it's gonna be the book Beating the Heart Attack Gene or do you think it's gonna be preterm babies?
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Chris Kammer:
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Jacque, you take that one first.
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Jacqueline R.:
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Oh boy, well you know they're both so important Howard. And you know now we know that Alzheimer's is linked to periodontal disease, so I don't know about you. I'm done having babies. But for me, heart attacks and Alzheimer's are number one and two on my list. So you pick. I mean, they're all important.
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Chris Kammer:
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But if we were to start out with the diseases that are killing the most people right now, and if we were to even look back at the last 100 years, the number one killer is atherosclerosis related diseases. So if you've got atherosclerosis, that's for the last 100 years been the number one cause of people getting heart attacks and strokes and so that's a pretty big one. And we do have the connection. And when you mention about pregnancy, and full term pregnancies and having a healthy baby, you know yeah getting the teeth cleaned very very important, but knowing what particular types of bacteria are there because Yiping Han, one of the lecturers for one of the AAOSH meetings, has identified ... I believe it's FN isn't it? Or there's a couple of those types that are causative and even found in the amniotic fluid of babies that didn't make it.
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So it's not just the gum disease, but it ... Well it is the gum disease, but it's also the gum disease that you have to use a lab test to find out what are the dangerous types of bacteria involved and some of them are more impactful on your pregnancy, some of them are harder on your atherosclerosis. They could actually bring fats into the linings of your arteries and all three ways of the atherogenic triad. Certain bacteria that are oral originating bacteria can give you atherosclerosis, contribute to your atherosclerosis. You don't want them in your system.
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Howard Farran:
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What is the triad? What are the three parts of the triad?
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Chris Kammer:
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The first is just the fact that they're there in your bloodstream. The second part is the permeability that helps them to get into the bloodstream. Now once these fats that are flowing through your bloodstream bump up against the artery there's a permeability factor that they increase. So they increase the permeability factor. So right now the fats are getting through the lining. Fats can go through the lining, but they usually pass and go right on through. The third part of it is they are sticky. They make those fats stay in the lining and that's where you get the plaques building up in your linings of your arteries where it starts to close down the flow of blood or it pushes through the lining and creates a thrombus which can lead to a blockage, heart attack, or a break off of the blockage and lead to a stroke.
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So those are the three ways. Fats in the blood, permeability of those fats into the lining of the artery, and the stick-ability ... That's not real high tech term there, but the stick-ability to stay in the lining of your arteries. They impact all three of those factors. That's the atherogenic triad.
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Howard Farran:
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How do you coach dentists who ... Well first of all, there's a hidden section on Dentaltown that we don't promote. If you go under leisure there is a section called politics and I put on there, "Do not enter if easily offended." And I can tell it doesn't show up on the today's active topic because it's so insane, but you can't even get the dentists to agree on global warming. How do you get them to agree ... There's so many dentists who say, "Well is this correlation or cause-effect?" I mean every morning when I wake up and make a pot of coffee, the sun comes up. Is it correlation or cause-effect? What do you say to the naysayers who say, "Come on Chris, come on Jacqueline, that's correlation. It's not cause-effect,"?
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Jacqueline R.:
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I just say, "Well then you need to come to an AAOSH scientific session and hear from leading experts, see the peer reviewed, double-blind, placebo controlled studies ... You know, you'll know for a fact." Which, there are some that may still be, we're not sure, that there is a cause-effect, but certainly for heart disease we know that there is. Preterm births we know that there is. Alzheimer's we know that there is. The cancer, you know, we know that there is. So-
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Howard Farran:
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And if they want to know when their next meeting is, they're all driving right now, they can't take notes. If they follow me on Twitter @HowardFarran, I always retweet my guests' last tweet. Your Twitter is @AAOSHconnect, and I just retweeted your last tweet, "US deaths from Alzheimer's disease rose by more than 50% from 1999 to 2014." It was from the Huffington Post. And then I'll retweet, "Patients with fewer teeth are more likely to suffer cardiovascular disease and cardiovascular related death."
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So how do you get the ... And then I'll throw another tough question at you. So many dentists say ... The first thing they say is, "Well is there an insurance code for this?" I mean if there's not an insurance code they just shut the door. What would you say to a dentist who says, "Well is there an insurance code for any of this?"
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Chris Kammer:
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I say, "Shut down your practice. 'Cause if it's all about the insurance code ... If you treat the people in your practice as if they were your mother, father, sister, brother, you'd want them to live a long life. Right?" So that takes preference over the insurance quotes.
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Howard Farran:
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Well that depends, are you talking about my sister who's a nun or my brother who likes to party?
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Chris Kammer:
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Okay, special circumstance aside. But I would hope the people would want to offer their best. I think patients come to the dentist because they're putting their life in your hands. And it's your responsibility to at least let them make the decision whether they want to have pay for something that insurance doesn't cover or not. So it's really your obligation to inform them.
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In regards to the convincing people that think that, "I don't know. Is it a correlation? Is it a whatever?" You know the correlation discussion, Howard, is over. It's over because of the most recent published study by Bale, Doneen, and Vigerust. They're the ones that identified five high risk periodontal bacteria that are absolutely no question causative of atherosclerosis. So you can't even have that discussion anymore. So I would just put it out there as like, the correlation, or maybe this ... That language is gone. It is causative. The study is out. It's been peer reviewed and it's a big milestone in dentistry and in heart care and in complete healthcare that this study is so powerful.
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And every year, Howard, the studies are more clear and more implicative of this connection. So it started out many years ago ... We kind of always had a ... We always knew about it ... Had a hunch. We could see that gum disease would raise your systemic inflammation and now we know that at the root of all disease, every doctor would agree, is chronic inflammation. And the number one source of chronic inflammation in the entire body is the gums. So you got this connection, and now that it's been solidified by this peer reviewed study. So we can't talk like that anymore. Correlation talk is over. It's causative, causative, causative. Put them in front of me, whoever wants to say it's correlation, I'll talk to them. Not that I'm going to be the best [convincer 00:12:28].
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Jacqueline R.:
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Like the ADA, right Chris?
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Chris Kammer:
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Oh my goodness. I want to protest on the ADA's steps. You know?
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Jacqueline R.:
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You need to.
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Chris Kammer:
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And just ...
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Howard Farran:
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Why? What did the ADA do?
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Chris Kammer:
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Well the ADA has not been ... What have they not done? I mean they don't really [crosstalk 00:12:44].
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Jacqueline R.:
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No, Chris. They just came out and said that there was no proof of a causation between bacterial pathogens and heart disease.
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Chris Kammer:
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When did they say that? I must have missed that.
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Jacqueline R.:
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Well Ashley sent out the press release about two weeks ago on AAOSH on it.
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Chris Kammer:
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Okay, well ... How'd I miss that? Well that is crazy.
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Jacqueline R.:
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Big surprise though, right? They're always 50 years behind. They're still saying, you know, amalgams are okay. So whatever.
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Chris Kammer:
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But Bale, Doneen, and Vigerust had a mountain of studies that they based their peer reviewed study off of. So the ADA has come out saying, "We're gonna just disregard this peer reviewed study with all of the sources, studies ..."
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Jacqueline R.:
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And not only that Chris, but Judith Miklossy from Switzerland and her research on Alzheimer's and spirochetes and Yiping Han that you mentioned with all of her research on sudden preterm death and FN. So the science is real, the science is available. All you have to do is go to PubMed to look it up. It's there. But here's the really cool part, Howard, just like Chris was saying, inflammation, the number one cause of all disease ... Most, you know, the underlying cause of al disease is chronic inflammation. We don't have to do a blood test. We don't have to have a sick patient come in to ... We don't have to wait for somebody to be sick to diagnose them with this chronic inflammation. All we have to do is open their mouth and in some cases just lightly touch their gum with our gloved finger, and they start gushing blood. I mean that's chronic inflammation. We can not ignore that. We can't ignore it, we can't watch it any more. Because it's not just a condition of the oral cavity, period.
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Chris Kammer:
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One of the things that AAOSH does at our meetings is we do the blood testing, saliva testing, and we also look at the carotid arteries and when you follow the trail from the high risk bacteria to the systemic inflammation to the plaques that are lining up and closing down the arteries you see this path. Now it's not in everybody because these are diseases that ... It's a continuum of the disease. Like in other words they may start in your 30's and get a little worse by your 40's, and then start to really show up and be evident in the 50's and 60's and maybe give you a heart attack in your 50's or 60's, but we want to shut it down. Why do we have to wait for disease to happen and people to die when we can be identifying these situations now?
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And that's the exciting part about for dentistry, it's like you know ... It's so way beyond the teeth. It is life saving dentistry that's never been there before. We've always kind of had hunch maybe it's there, but now the mouth and the body connected beyond anything that we've ever experienced. And we have the studies to show it. Plus we've been following this for years and years. And we're finally getting some hardcore acknowledgement of it. But that ADA thing has got me really bugged, so I don't know what's up with that.
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Howard Farran:
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So you haven't read the ADA thing then?
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Chris Kammer:
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I missed it. So, Jacque, what else do you know about it?
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Howard Farran:
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Jacque, can you email it to me?
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Jacqueline R.:
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Yes. I'll send it. I'll send you the press release.
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Howard Farran:
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I'm howard@dentaltown.com. But you know what, my consumers, my patients, I know dentists don't like to sell dentistry ... They say they don't like sales. My patients are customers. They come in and when they're doing their 15 minute google search to trump my eight years of college, WebMD is, I think, the number one brand they go to. And on WebMD it says, "Does a healthy mouth equal a healthy heart? More and more of the research says yes. Doctors have been talking about the potential link for nearly two decades with good reason. Heart disease is a serious problem around the world. So is oral health. Doctor Thomas Boyden, Jr., MD is the medical director of preventive cardiology at Spectrum Health Medical Group Cardiovascular Services says, "I think the data is pretty strong and there is definitely a link." Scott Merritt, DMD, founder and partner agrees. "I absolutely believe there is a strong correlation between oral and heart function."
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So then they ask, "What's the link?" In a word, it's inflammation. And every MD that's one of my friends says that if he does all your physical and everything and your c-reactive protein is low, he thinks you're good. But if he can't find anything wrong, but your c-reactive protein is elevated, they start thinking ... They basically say you know it's really hard to be really really sick or ill or have something really bad going on without being inflamed. And inflammation is the fundamental thing and they really watch that a lot. Do you agree with that or disagree with that?
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Chris Kammer:
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I agree. Bodies are on fire, and they're quietly on fire. That's the scary part. You know? And gum disease is more prevalent than we would ever even imagine. But it's kind of another quietly state of disease. Like we don't always see the clinical signs, but you could have high levels of bacteria. So absolutely. I mean the screening that we do is not ... At our AAOSH meetings ... It is not ... It is just basically a screening like, you know, what's going on in your saliva. What's going on in your system. What's going on in your arteries. And-
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Jacqueline R.:
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What's going on with your immune health. Because that's the thing, Howard. It's a multifactorial disease. The presence of the high risk pathogens for most people ... Chris, you can attest to that. We seldom test people's saliva who have a lot of high risk pathogens that don't have some clinical evidence of disease. Typically we don't do saliva tests on every single hygiene patient. Because again, how do we charge them, is there a code, but by the way yes there is. And that's another thing we teach at our scientific session is medical billing and how you can actually get paid for doing these life saving tests on your patients. But you know everybody's load and tolerance is different because of their nutritional status, their immune status ... So a tipping point for one who eats sugar, you know drinks a lot of alcohol, smokes, is borderline diabetic ... You know the tipping point is going to be a much lower bacterial load.
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But somebody who is doing good home care, but just ... Eats well ... This happened to me, that's why I know this. You do all the things right, but you get infected because yes, this is a transmissible disease. You get infected by a boyfriend, a family member, who maybe you drank after her ... Used her water bottle ... Whatever. You can get inoculated with those pathogens and it can still take you down. So you know, it's not just that you don't take care of your teeth. You can actually get this through kissing, sharing eating utensils. So it's a big deal to test for these pathogens.
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Howard Farran:
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Now your next meeting is going to be in Salt Lake City.
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Jacqueline R.:
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Yep.
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Howard Farran:
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September 15th to the 17th this year.
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Jacqueline R.:
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That's correct.
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Howard Farran:
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Right? It's going to be ... Yeah. So register now. If they go to AAOSH, A-A-O-S-H, American Academy of Oral Systemic Health, dot organization. Not dot com. So AAOSH.org. Um, you can register now for their seventh annual scientific session in Salt Lake City, September 15 to 17. And you have a lot of interesting speakers going out. Keynote speaker, Mark Rosenberg. Integrative approach to cancer prevention and treatments for immunology. Dominic D’Agostino. I mean you've just got a bunch of speakers. You know another thing that I see a disconnect between dentists and their patients is the patients and the dentists, they don't realize ... The dentists don't realize how much they're against the current medical model.
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I mean the current medical model is just give everyone a pill or cut something off. I mean it dates all the way back to the Medicine Man for the last two million years, every time you got sick you went up to some guy with a bunch of makeup on and he did a dance and he put lotions and potions in a bowl. And he either took out his knife and cut something off or he gave you a potion and it hasn't changed.
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Jacqueline R.:
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Absolutely.
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Howard Farran:
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You go tell your doctor, you know, "I'm having trouble sleeping." Oh, here's Ambien. I mean, it's just all pills. And these dentists are so against the pills. But the patients see this as alternative medicine, holistic medicine, naturopath. And these are frightening words for my homies. I mean when you tell a 55 year old dentist you went to a homeopath, he'd think you're on drugs. But what they're saying, when they see natural, alternative ... Alternative medicine, what they're thinking is, "If I go in there with a problem they're just not going to try to shove five prescriptions down my mouth." Do you agree with that or disagree with that?
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Chris Kammer:
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It's all surgeries and pharmacy. You know, that's the big money model of medicine. Now I'm not saying that we don't need that sometimes, we absolutely do. But we can't rely on it. It can't be the go-to, always gonna be. Sure, get as sick as you want. Here's your pill. Get as sick as you want, here's your surgery. You know? I think dentistry can lead the way toward a transformation of this country to a healthier mindset model. And we're better than dentistry. We see the patients. We can find these early signs if you don't want to go down the path to end-stage disease, get orally healthy. For those of you dentists out there and team members out there saying, "You know, I'm just so tired of doing the fillings and the this or that." It's like, alright, alright.
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Well there's a whole brand new area of dental medicine opening up where you can now save lives. I didn't go to medical school, I was afraid of people dying. You know, I said, "That would be kind of hard." But ... So I thought dentistry, people wouldn't be dying. But I'm in the business now of keeping people alive and that's what dentists will start to get. And it's a whole new exciting way of doing dentistry. It's real. There's a financial picture there that can be taken advantage of as well, because you've got to make money. But you can make money getting people healthier. And I mean whole body healthy. And leading them on to their ... You know, working with their doctor. How easy is it to work with a doctor? It's hard. It's really hard 'cause they don't always want to listen.
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Jacqueline R.:
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That's it.
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Chris Kammer:
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Yeah. They're too busy. They're too busy. And a lot of dentists are too busy to care about this too. You know, you've got to light the fire, and it's got to be a passion because to have these discussions you know it takes time. But there are ways you can educate your patients without it taking a lot of your time with the pamphlets that you have, the video presentations in your lobby. You know, it's things that can stir the patients to ask questions about these kinds of things. But we can lead the way. I see dentistry as being the profession that helps transform this nation because we're going down the toilet. You know, by the end of this decade they're saying that at least near half the population is either gonna be pre-diabetic or diabetic. We've got a diabetic crisis on our hand.
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And what contribute to diabetes but unhealthy, inflamed, infected gums? And what makes it harder to even get those gums healthy? Having diabetes. How many diabetics know that you're seven times more likely to die if you have gum disease. So that's the exciting part about dentistry. We can lead the way toward a healthier nation. We can lead the way to prevent our country from going bankrupt. It's not going to be easy. This isn't just crazy talk. But it's real, but it's ... We've got to turn the profession around. We've got to be looking for early signs and it's fun to save patients' lives, it's fun to get them their light to go on and go, "Wow, you are different. This is ... There are these connections. I had no idea." And so, it's kind of like that.
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Jacqueline R.:
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Well so, Chris, I couldn't agree with you more. Here's the difference between our practice, the practice of dentistry, and the practice of medicine. Our patients come to see us when they're healthy. They come for their preventive checkups. A truly you know, preventive cleaning. So ... They go to their doctor when they're already sick. And their expectation is, "I'm going to get a pill. I'm going to get rid of this symptom." You know, the doctor is going to treat the symptom. He doesn't have time to figure out why they have the symptom, he's just going to treat the symptom. We have the opportunity when they're healthy to start the educational process.
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And what I find with my clients is I have to first get them healthy. The doctors, the hygienists, the dental assistants. Because I'm sorry, but we are one sick profession. I remember when I was practicing I didn't get up from my stool to pee all day. And I mean I abused my body practicing dentistry. Just, you know, I didn't want to take lunch break. I wanted to get in and get out so I could be home with my kids. So I didn't eat and I didn't pee and I didn't drink and I ... You know, I just killed myself. And I'm not alone in that. You know, we don't take very good care of ourselves. We don't practice ergonomically. We just don't.
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So first, we've got to get ourselves healthy. And then, you know, we'll have that emotional connection and we can share it with passion with our patients why we're wanting to do the salivary test or why we want to do a finger prick to see what their A1C is. Or why we want to call their doctor and collaborate on their medical care. So I think the day is coming when people my age especially, 'cause these aren't diseases of old age, these don't have to take us down. These are preventable conditions. We are more open to it. And it's going to be a consumer driven movement. I don't think there's enough dentists in this country that are on board to be a profession driven movement. It's going to have to come from the consumers. And I think there's an awful lot of us that are there, looking for an answer to why do I have these symptoms? I don't want more drugs. I want you to fix my symptoms. Fix me.
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Howard Farran:
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I think there's several Americas going on. I think a lot of people ... It's really easy to say that you know, half are boys, half are girls. Some are Irish or some are German or Canadian or whatever. But the hardest to see is how the different groups think. The senior citizens verse the baby boomers versus generation x to the millennials. And you hear millennials, it seems like if a doctor says to grandpa, "Here, take all these pills." He'll say, "Okay." And then you hear the millennial saying, "Oh my God, grandpa! Have you seen all the side effects? I mean that commercial ... That pill ... Half the commercial is side effects." And you've got all these side effects from this pill, but then you have all these side effects from another pill but no one's even studied the side effects if you combine the two pills. And so the point I'm trying to make is this, you said on your bio, she became voracious student of all things alternative like nutrition.
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Jacqueline R.:
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I said that in quotes.
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Howard Farran:
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But I'm telling you ... I know you did. Because when you say alternative dentist, every dentist that's not young like me who's 54, but all the old ones are like 55 to 70, you say alternative and they think you're a wacko. But again, when you listen to that dentist, they're actually alternative. They don't want to take pills. You tell a 55 year old dentist you've got high blood pressure, he doesn't say, "Oh, I need a prescription." He says, "Man, I need to lose 20 pounds and join the gym and blah blah blah blah blah." So they all ... Their actions are all alternative and holistic, but they cringe at the word. How do you bridge that division?
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Jacqueline R.:
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Well, I mean alternative to me ... That's a joke. That means alternative to the status quo. Alternative to our current medical model. It's a good thing. I mean it ... It's got a bad connotation, but I mean it good because I do not want to go down that road. So I put that, I put nutrition, supplementation, lifestyle changes in you know that ... But it's not alternative. It's stuff we know. We know it intuitively, it's common sense. Feed your body good food. Exercise your body, it'll treat you right. You know, I mean it just makes sense.
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Howard Farran:
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I think we're living right at the actual time where ... We're a two million year old species, where a hundred billion humans have come and gone. And they all lived under the Medicine Man model. "I'll make you a lotion potion pharmacy, or I'll cut something off." And I believe it is this generation of millennials here saying, "Maybe that lotion and potion you're selling me for money. And I really don't want anything cut off." I mean look at the fact that they don't want to smoke a pack a day, and then get cured from lung cancer. They're preventing lung cancer. They don't want to get diabetes and take insulin, they want to prevent diabetes. So I think we're ... I think the end of the Medicine Man is right here and I think all the grandpas out there right now are still believing and then their grandchildren are starting to walk away from it.
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Jacqueline R.:
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I hope so.
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Chris Kammer:
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You're talking about ... And then the part about human nature. You know, the hardest thing we have going against us is that we're all human, and we have human tendencies. And the human tendencies, like I'm trying to raise my son and I try to give him all the good advice I think have and he doesn't listen, I say, "Well there's two ways to learn. You can take my advice or you can learn the hard way." America, at this point prefers to learn the hard way. When they decide they don't want to learn the hard way. But that's hard because to learn the hard way, you have to let that go. We think we're indestructible. We go for years and years and years. We don't get sick, and then all of a sudden, we up and die from a heart attack.
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It's like, well that wasn't an all of a sudden thing. You know, so when the student is ready, the teacher is AAOSH. You know, we can take ... We can help you. We can help the profession, we can help our fellow dentists and dental team members. And once they're healthy ... Like we want to save their lives before they go out and save the lives of their patients, friends, family. What a great position to be in. What a great calling in life. Life doesn't get any better when you actually can help people live longer and enjoy a better quality of life. And that's what health is.
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Look at Jacque. She's healthy. You know, but she's had it worse. But look ... The smartest people and the best entrepreneurs have all gone through something horrible to get to that place where you now have enlightenment. So, America, you can choose to wait and wait and wait and get as sick as you want 'til some day you up and die, or you can ... You know, you've chosen this health profession, so get yourself healthy and then take that experience to your patients. And that's what AAOSH is all about. That's what we're trying to do. We have a competition at AAOSH where we crown a health champion every meeting because they go through all the tests and who's doing the best.
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We want to walk to the talk, and that's what we're doing in American Academy for Oral Systemic Health. So it's a fun way to be. Life is beautiful. I mean, bottom line, do you want to keep living, people? Who wants to keep living? Why do you want to keep living? Oh, you have lots of reasons. Yeah. Well here. Let's do everything we can do to keep you living. And if you went into dentistry for money, fine. But you know a lot of people are putting their lives in your hands, how do you feel about that? Do you want to help them live as long as possible? Be as healthy as possible? Do they need to look at you and be inspired? Like, "Wow, I want what you got! You're all healthy and all that." So that's kind of ... That's it.
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Howard Farran:
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How do you recommend that they get involved in the local community and how in the world did you make it to Reader's Digest, USA Today, New York Times, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Woman's Day, ABC World News Tonight With Diane Sawyer, Person of the Week ... I mean, The Today Show, Fox and Friends. I mean how did ... I mean everybody driving to work right now is like, "Dude, I couldn't get the local newspaper to take my call and you're with Diane Sawyer. How does that happen?"
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Chris Kammer:
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Right. Right. Well, Howard, I'll tell you. First of all, I got to find the guy that wrote that, and ask him. 'Cause I have no idea. I'm just kidding. You know that ... Okay. When I used to be called the advertising dentist and I was really all about ... When advertising was taboo, I enjoyed being the guy out there breaking the taboo. Saying, "No. You know, that might be the only education somebody gets." So I used to think in my egocentric way, that why did somebody get a story in the newspaper and I didn't? 'Cause I think I'm all that, right? We all have that moment, I think. Well maybe I'm the only one.
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But then I decided, I said, "Well if you don't get out there and start knocking on those doors, making those phone calls, sending out those press releases, how could they ignore me?" Is basically what I will tell you, Howard. I sent out so many press releases, made so many phone calls, knocked on so many doors. I had help doing it. It wasn't all me. I was kind of busy doing dentistry but I had a team of marketers and I used their expertise to put me in the spot light. And my best example is Madison, Wisconsin had their top dentists in Madison one year. One year. And they had picked 29 of the top dentists of Madison. I was not in that group at all. But you know what, I was on the cover of the magazine that said, "Top dentists." And the only reason I was is they couldn't ignore me.
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I kept ... I tried to educate them and educate them and educate them. And so ... Paid off. When you're passionate about the message, you can hardly sit still, you know, to not tell this story. And even at AAOSH, we had a Jess Todtfeld who was a PR specialist to try to hook dentists up with helping them get their message out. There's so many pieces to this puzzle. But what AAOSH is also is an educational group. We're trying to educate our peers, we're trying to educate the medical community, we're trying to educate the public at large. Because we have a message. It's a powerful message and Howard, you knew my dad. I was involved in the forming of the ... I was there at the founding meeting for the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry. That was the biggest thing in dentistry for a long long time. That was a wave that just swept over dentistry. Huge, and it was exciting.
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So I've experienced that from the get-go, but now I'm in this oral systemic next wave, and the thing I tell people is like every time you hear something about it, it's never going to go away. The evidence gets stronger. The studies get deeper, they're more and more prevalent. It's not going away. This is the next huge tsunami to go over the profession of dentistry. It just is taking a little while because we're all floating our own boat. Dentists are the most independent people on the planet. Change does not happen fast in dentistry. And I blame the ADA for that. They ought to get off their butts and start making some noise because when lives depend upon it, you can't have a casual attitude about this and calling it like, "Oh well, gum disease doesn't really cause heart disease."
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That's as ridiculous as saying the light switch doesn't really turn on the light. Right, if I just have a light switch in this hand and I have a light here, it doesn't turn on the light, right? But there's a connection between the two. There's the wires that ... Where the switch turns the light on. There is a circulatory system that connects the mouth to the body. It's just common sense. And when the ADA said that what happens ... The take away from what the ADA said was that when the America Heart Association said that your mouth health does not cause a heart attack, that was irresponsible, that was ridiculous. AAOSH put out a statement against it, as did Dale and Doneen and some other notables. But I'm all bent out of shape about this latest thing about the ADA.
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I mean we need to take the ADA out to lunch and school them a little bit.
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Howard Farran:
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Well now, on defense of the ADA, I mean, I see it on Dentaltown every single day. I mean, again on Dentaltown the dentists don't agree about global warming. They disagree about the last election. I remember one time the ADA put a budgeted a big chunk of change for a television advertising campaign on gum disease and after the periodontist fighting over what the 60 second commercial was going to say for three years, they finally dropped it. The ADA is just a collection of two thirds of all the dentists. And you can't get the dentists to agree that today is Friday.
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Chris Kammer:
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So the reason that the ADA tries to be everything to everybody is why they won't take a stand that is so critical at this moment in time. This is the most important thing going on in dentistry in my opinion. And in regards to whatever the latest thing that the ADA has said where they're disregarding that the oral bacteria might be a factor in atherosclerosis or heart disease, I have not read their statement, so I don't come from a place of knowledge there. But if it is what is sounds like to me, I'm shocked beyond belief and you can bet that the AAOSH is going to come out with a statement on that. And we will go toe to toe with them. I don't know. But that's my feeling.
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Howard Farran:
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I'm going to hold you back down to the fire real quick. To get all those connections, you said you had some help by people. Did you hire a PR firm? A lot of dentists say ... You know, because when they look at marketing there's ... They think, "Okay, there's direct mail. There's people who build websites." But a lot of people ask on Dentaltown, "Has anybody ever used a PR firm or a PR marketing firm?" That's completely different than search engine optimization for your website. You were the advertising dentist forever. I mean, I first met you ... By the way, I think your dad was one of the greatest people in the world. And how cool is it that he called the Cosmetic Revolution and the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry was started in Madison. And now his son is doing the American Academy for Oral Systemic Health. Your dad was just an amazing man, and so are you, Chris.
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Chris Kammer:
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Thank you. Thank you Howard.
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Howard Farran:
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But did you ... The specific question ... Did you hire a PR firm?
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Chris Kammer:
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Howard, at one point in my office I had four people in my marketing department. I had a graphic designer, a PR specialist, a videographer/photographer, and I'm not sure what that fourth person did, but they did get a check. But no. But I did. So I've done it all. Yes. And I had a national PR firm for a while. But you know what I wanted to do, my fear for getting a PR person was I wanted results. And I didn't want to wait for results. You know, they usually say, "Well, you've got to keep in their face." And that's true. You got to keep your message going and going. I said, "But you know what, if I'm spending," and if I recall correctly, "10,000 dollars a month for your national PR, I want some national PR." And the contract I signed gave me the right to get out of my annual contract if I was not happy immediately.
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So in other words, I held their hand to the flame and I said, "I'm giving you one month, I want national publicity. Make it happen." And they did. I did a big story in Star Magazine on cosmetics. This was back when I was more of a cosmetic dentist and I analyzed all the star's smiles from Julia Roberts to Britney Spears to Hugh Grant ... On and on and on. And that was a two page spread. And that led to something in the Inquirer and that led to other things. You know, so it's ... The media is a copy cat business. If you get picked up in one place, there's your ticket to go get more. And frankly I didn't really have enough money to be spending ten grand every month, so I wanted the best.
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I kind of in my mind knew I was going to pull out after a month and if they couldn't produce then great, I'm out of it. But I held their hand to the flame and I got results. Hold your people that are working for you, hold their hand to the flame. Make them produce. But there is some ... There is definitely an advantage, and that's how I got on the cover of Madison Magazine, to being there with information every month. Sending them a press release every month. They may not use it. The whole PR business is very interesting because once they do a story on you, you don't have any control necessarily over what they say.
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The flip side of that is, once you give them a well written piece, they might just take it word for word and put their author on it and it goes into their magazine. That's good too. I'll take that.
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Howard Farran:
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Oh, I'm telling you. I see it all the time. You'll see a headline about a whatever in dentistry and then google search will show you that there's 19 related links to this site, and you open up all those 17 different newspapers and it's plagiarism from A to Z, maybe two out of 15 newspapers will just change a few words, maybe a word or two in the headline. But yeah, exactly right. I mean these local newspapers are getting fed stories and they're hardly even taking the time to modify it a few words.
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Chris Kammer:
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That's so true. And also an answer to you question, there's an organization out in New York City, the guy's name is Steve. But Jess Todtfeld knows him. And if anyone needs to get ahold of Jess I'll be happy to make that connection because I think dentists need to get the word ... I encourage you to get a PR person in your local town. Maybe you're not quite ready for the national spotlight. Or maybe you are. Maybe you've got something you want to tell the world.
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Howard Farran:
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That's your PR guy, Jeff?
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Chris Kammer:
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Jess Todtfeld.
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Howard Farran:
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Spell it.
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Chris Kammer:
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T-o-d-t-f-e-l-d.
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Howard Farran:
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T-o-d-t-f-e-l ...
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Chris Kammer:
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D.
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Howard Farran:
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D? And what's his first name?
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Chris Kammer:
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Jess.
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Howard Farran:
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That's the one you recommend? A PR firm in New York City?
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Chris Kammer:
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He teaches. He will teach you how to get PR if you want to learn it. And I think it's good to learn it. Because then you can decide how much help beyond that you need. He can also connect you up with a seminar where they will put you in front of 20 national media people. It's kind of like that speed dating kind of a thing. And so my first appearance on Fox and Friends where I was cosmetically critiquing the presidential candidates smiles came as a result of that. And Jess was actually the guy working at Fox at the time. He said, "I think you've got something there, now hang on." You know? And we developed a pitch for Fox and Friends and that got me on TV there.
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So Jess has all the connections from either teaching you how to do PR or the people that can help you write a book or the best way to get into the producers for Good Morning America or whatever it is. Jess is a good man.
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Howard Farran:
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Well I talked to a PR firm and they told me I definitely only had a face for radio. They said, "You can't do TV. You can't do YouTube." They said, "You can only be on audio only." I think another thing that gets me excited about what you're doing is ... When you're born and raised in a country, it's your tribe. You believe all the cultures, customs, food. You know, if you're in America you like sugar and salt, if you're born in India you like curry. But when I go to ... You know, when I was little, Soviet Union was the evil empire. So you know, you were just born ... They were evil. But when I've gone through those countries, the fact that they didn't break off the dentist ... You know, we've broke off dentists from positions and with the University of Baltimore going to dental school in like 1880 because the dentists need the chair and the physicians need the bed.
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That was the exact schism of dentistry. But in the Soviet model, you're all MD's and some after the first six years go and do finish in dermatology or OBGYN or stomatology. And I just think they have a better system. I just think that ... I mean why is an ear, nose, and throat and a dermatologist a doctor, but a dentist is not? But the other real big reason I like it is for Jacque's case. When Jacqueline ... You know, dentistry is all hands on surgery. And if you lose your health or eye-hand coordination ... I know dentists that lost one eye and you can't practice 3-D dentistry with one eye. And you don't understand that until you've lost the eye.
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But in the Soviet Union, if you didn't want to do surgery anymore all you have to do is go back to school, do another residency and take dermatology or ear, nose, and throat or you know ... They can move around. And I think this oral systemic health connection ... I mean, how did we ever get in our mind that the mouth was not part of the body? I remember I was on American Airlines, flying to a lecture in the early 90's, and somebody on the PA got on and said, "Is there a doctor in the cabin?" And no one stood up, so I walked up, and she says, "Are you a doctor?" And I said, "Yes, I'm a dentist." She goes, "Oh, please take your seat." And I thought, "So what are you going to get now, a flight attendant?" I mean I went to eight years of college and I'm supposed to go back to my seat?
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I mean the Soviets launched Sputnik before we did, the Soviets landed a something on the moon before we landed a human on the moon. The Soviets are very smart. I think they have a better medical model with stomatology being a branch of medicine than dentistry not being part of the hospital chain.
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Jacqueline R.:
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Well, and the good news is, Howard, we are starting to see it across the country. The medical schools and the dental schools are starting to collaborate. You know, there's some crossover not just in our first year classes but more medicine is being taught. We are reuniting the mouth and the body again. And it's just ... You know, that's just our mission at AAOSH.
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Howard Farran:
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But it's so clinically insane. I mean-
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Jacqueline R.:
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It is.
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Howard Farran:
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... Name a business that would turn down eight percent of their requests. Imagine if you went to a restaurant and every single night, eight percent of all the guests ordered a meal and you didn't have it. And yet eight percent of all emergency room visits are odontogenic in origin, and they give every one of them a script for [vic 00:48:28] and Pen VK. I mean, but they can remove a brain tumor. They can treat your heart attack. They can amputate your diabetic foot, but they can't even look in the mouth. I mean all you young kids out there, I'm telling you, I have personally in the last six months driven to every urgent care in a 10 mile radius of my office pressing the flesh, running for mayor. When people come in there for a toothache, here's a referral.
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Just like your specialist sends you donuts or cookies or cakes or whatever, you should be doing that with all of your pharmacists and all of emergency rooms. I mean because they can't ... This schism is so far that an emergency room can't even treat a toothache. Isn't that just bizarre? How did we get this far?
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Jacqueline R.:
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Well we just completely compartmentalize medicine. I mean, you go to a dermatologist, you've got a rash. They don't ask you one question about what you've been eating. They give you some damn cream to put on it. You know, you go to ... Everybody is so specialized. In other words, they don't ... Nobody cares about all the things that are contributing to that symptom. If it's something wrong with your eye, then they're going to give you something for your eye. You know, it doesn't matter if you could've been ... They just don't question where have you been? You know, what kind of parasites could you have been exposed to? It's just crazy how compartmentalized we are. And dentistry has done the same thing.
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We've got to put all of the body parts back in the body and start treating people holistically, even if that sounds like a crazy wacko word.
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Howard Farran:
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Hang on a second.
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Jacqueline R.:
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That's what-
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Howard Farran:
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Hang on a second. Ryan, we're going to have to edit that word holistically out. I don't want to lose my whole podcast show. I think that was-
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Jacqueline R.:
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Sorry.
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Howard Farran:
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I'm just kidding! I'm just kidding! You're right. You say holistically to a dentist and they freak out. I mean they just completely forget. And again, I'll tell you what. I can't tell you how many Walgreens pharmacists I've taken out to dinner at my own house, or go to a restaurant and meet them and their wife or whatever. You would not believe how many people go up to a pharmacist every day just ... It's the American mindset for the Medicine Man. Well if I get a toothache, isn't there that once cream, that Anbesol, or what do you rub on it? And they're not even thinking short term relief, they're almost thinking, "Well wouldn't Anbesol cure that?" And they're like, "No, dude. You need to go see Howard. You know, here." And you give them your cards.
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I mean, that leads me to another thing. Chris and Jacqueline, do you think all these prescription pills, they used to not be allowed to advertise on TV just like we didn't before 1973, dentists legally could not advertise. Chris, you were the advertising dentist for a decade. Do you think that every time you turn on the TV you should be seeing another commercial for some pill to take?
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Chris Kammer:
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Well the truth is, Howard, that ship has sailed. It's out of the box. It's not going back in. We are in the information age and people are going to find new ways of getting their information to the people. So we're going to be inundated with all of that. And yeah, there's a big ... That's causing a lot of people to ask for prescriptions. It'd be just as great if we could have the alternative point of view, saying, "Hey, you may not need all those prescriptions."
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Jacqueline R.:
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That's never going to happen.
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Chris Kammer:
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It's not going to happen. But ... So ... Somewhere. Here's where it all comes together. Somewhere we need to help people take back personal responsibility for their own health because there's always going to be pills. There's always going to be surgeries. There's always going to be organizations that want to give you those pills and surgeries. And in the same breath I'll say sometimes we need those life saving pills and surgeries, but maybe not as much ... Or probably not as much as they are being used. They're over used, over utilized, depended upon. So we have to start a movement where we have the role models, the mentors that are leading by example saying "We're not going to just fade away ... Just live our lives with a careless and reckless abandon over this precious temple that is our body. It's time to treat it right, take good care of it. If you're on board with that, come with me. If you want to live the average normal American lifestyle, don't come with me. I still love you. When you're ready to come with me, let's do it. But I understand."
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You know, it's like my son. You've got learn or ... There's two ways to learn, people. You can learn the hard way, or you can take our advice.
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Howard Farran:
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To both of you, a lot of people are seeing a lot of talking on Dentaltown, a lot of advertisements about ending salivary diagnostic testing. What do you think about the salivary diagnostic test?
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Chris Kammer:
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Everything. The world. It's changing dentistry. It has changed ... I can't ... Jacque ... I've lost it. You take it. 'Cause it's huge.
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Jacqueline R.:
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It's imperative. It's imperative if you've got anybody with any bleeding at all you should do a salivary test.
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Howard Farran:
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But they want specifics. What do you use? What company? How does it work? Do they spit in a vial? Do they ... Talk specifics.
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Jacqueline R.:
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It's very simple. OralDNA genetics is the test. OralDNA, they have a periodontal pathogen test. They have an immune system profile test to see if you are genetically predisposed to these inflammatory cytokines and you know, pathways due to your genetics. And then there's also the HPV test that you can do. But for sure, when you see somebody who's got bleeding gums, you need to find out what those pathogens are. Because you can root plane them until they don't have a root left, if you don't get those tissue invasive bacteria out of their body, you will never cure their periodontal disease.
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I don't care how much gum you remove, I don't care how many times you root plane them, they will never be free of disease because those pathogens are tissue invasive. Now they're in the bloodstream. Now they're systemic. Now they're affecting other body parts. You've lost the battle.
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Chris Kammer:
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They find these-
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Howard Farran:
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For my homies driving, I just retweeted ... OralDNA is their Twitter. So @OralDNA. So when you get to work, if you go to my last tweet, OralDNA, their website is there, OralDNA. And they're in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.
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Jacqueline R.:
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Yep.
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Chris Kammer:
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And here's just a quick little factoid, is that from all of the dental professionals that I have tested, way over half have one of the 11 pathogens out of control, meaning beyond a threshold level where it could cause tissue damage. It's a big big concern. And a lot of these people are hygienists, a lot of these people are dentists. They don't know what they don't know. And even though you think you're healthy, you could have excellent clinical signs in your mouth. Going no bleeding, tissue looks good, no bone loss, and yet you may have an out of control level of pathogen that is impacting your body and you will never know about it 'til it's too late. Everyone-
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Jacqueline R.:
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That's right, because it doesn't have anything to do with your home care. Those poor people that you say you've just got to floss more ... That's wrong. They can't floss these bacteria away. You get inoculated with this. Either from birth and your body is able to keep it in balance until some event happens and you're again, your inflammation is overloaded and now you start succumbing to disease. That's why we see more of it as we get older. But now we're seeing it more and more in kids just coming in with just awful gingivitis, bleeding, periodontal disease in children because of the inflammatory burden that we're all living with now because of the shit we're- Oh, excuse me. Because of the stuff that we're eating that's not really food that we're calling food, and the environmental toxins and the stress level.
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You know, we're just not built to last like we were because of this incredible burden that we're under now.
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Howard Farran:
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I want to switch away from periodontal disease to HPV because I feel like I've seen this rodeo before. I remember in the late ... You know, '78, '79 they were talking about gay cancer. Eventually that's turned out to AIDs. Ronald Reagan never even said the word for eight years. It seems like we have a generation of people that believe if they have protection on below their belt, they're all good. And they're not aware that they're spreading HPV in the mouth. I don't see much ... Who was the famous movie star that was ... Michael Douglas.
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Jacqueline R.:
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Michael Douglas.
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Howard Farran:
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Michael Douglas was the first one who'd come out and said it, and everybody was like rooting ... Glad someone said it, but it seems like this is really really growing. OralDNA does HPV testing. How does that work in a dental office and what would you even do if they test positive to it?
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Jacqueline R.:
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Chris ...
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Chris Kammer:
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Well that's definitely been one of the challenges as to how you inform somebody of that. And that's what actually, when it first came out, a lot of people jumped into it and dove into it and then they didn't know what ... Like now that I know that they've got this, how do I tell them? This is ... You know, it's like, there's this certain concern about how do you ... Do you want to make people afraid over something they necessarily can't do anything about to change? However, the point of knowing would be that you want to make sure you're having more frequent oropharyngeal scoping and testing and you know they want to be looking now to those areas where the oral cancer could develop and you want to get that dental scope out. You want to look at the tissue. So the point of knowing that you do test for the HPV ... You want to make sure that you're doing everything you can to screen for any signs of oral cancer.
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Howard Farran:
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Well you know what's weird is, you know, when I was little ... When I was in school, so many people would get mad that so many people didn't think dentists were a real doctor. And it's like, well actually, if you look at our own state boards which are ... I mean every one of the state's state boards is ... The dentists are the judge and jury and the executioner. They're all dentists on the board. And every time a state comes up and says, "Well, can dentists have the right to give a flu shot?" Because when you look at the 8,000 to 38,000 Americans who die of the flu each year, of the top three point of entries into the healthcare system that all these people died, dentistry is always one of those three.
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And here you have a hygienist who has four years of college, a registered nurse who has four years of college, why would you be worried about gingivitis when you're cleaning an 82 year old lady who hasn't had her flu shot? It's far more probable she's going to die of the flu than gingivitis. And the dentists vote it down, I think only Tennessee has passed it.
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The HPV vaccine. You're about as much of a doctor as Dr. Pepper or Dr. Dre or Dr. Seuss if you can't mention to the moms, "Look, your children are coming up ... They just passed ten years old. And we know this HPV vaccine needs to be in there before they get the HPV. And the cancer in our area, the mouth, the oral cancer, more and more of it's coming from HPV. And they're going to go to college and kiss and trade saliva and spit and all that stuff." They just want to say, "You have a mesial cavity on tooth number three and need an MO. Go up for it and tell Agnus to schedule you for an MO on number three."
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Jacqueline R.:
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It takes courage. It does take courage.
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Howard Farran:
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Why can't dentists give an HPV vaccine at the office when it's a cancer in our area? I can't, but the pharmacist at ... The pharmacy tech assistant who went to nine months of school can give it to me at Walgreens or CVS. I can't give grandma a flu shot after eight ... I've gone to college for nine years. Nine years of college. I can't give a flu shot. But if I went to nine month pharmacy tech, and worked at Walgreens or CVS ... Is it CVS or CVC?
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Chris Kammer:
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CVS.
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Howard Farran:
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CVS ... I could be giving ... I mean what ... And that is not the ADA. That's your own state board of dental examiners. Those are the dentists who've voted that down. I mean my gosh.
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Chris Kammer:
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Well-
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Jacqueline R.:
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Yeah and it takes courage, you know, when you start dealing with those kind of issues do you-
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Howard Farran:
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Oh, that might be ... You're so good, Chris. Chris was the one ... I don't know if you guys know this, but Chris was the advertising dentist for ten years and he's the one who coached that guy to go out there and shoot a lion. He said, "Man, you'll get so much free press." And that was Chris Kammer's client. He paid 10,000 dollars for that tip. Chris, this is what you should do. You should start ... You and I ... Everybody should start giving flu shots and start giving HPV vaccines, hoping that one of us will get arrested and have our license suspended so that it'll finally make the Diane Sawyer, you know, ABC News World News at night because I mean any business man wants everything to go better, faster, easier, cheaper, higher quality.
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And if grandmas and grandpas are most likely last seen at the dental office ... At that point of entry, your four year degree registered nurse dental hygienist should be asking, "Have you had your flu shot?" And if not, she should go in the refrigerator, get the vaccine, and give it to her right in the arm. And if they want to come arrest her, they probably should so that finally everybody can see the insanity of these laws.
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Chris Kammer:
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Howard, I would be there doing it with you. I still have three-
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Howard Farran:
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Will you do jail time with me?
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Chris Kammer:
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Well I've got three kids in college so I'm going to wait on that. But I'm going to log it back in my head and in a few years you and I will go do that.
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Howard Farran:
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Yeah. I mean-
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Chris Kammer:
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But in regards to this discussion too, I think there's so much that dentists can be doing in their office. And what they can do now even is with diabetes being out of control, why not take a drop of gingival blood in a micro pipette and put it on a dry filter paper and let it dry, send it off to the lab and screen for A1C or blood-sugar controlled diabetes? I mean I think that the dental office will be the number one facility outside of the medical doctor's offices, although we're medical too ... But you know what I'm saying ... The physicians ... Where we're screening for diabetes. This isn't just a good idea, it should be a mandate because we're heading for a crisis with diabetes that we can't pay for. And the next discussion about, "Well are we going to shut the government down this month 'cause we're out of money," is going to come from this healthcare that we can't afford to deliver. So ...
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Howard Farran:
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And I do ... I'm so proud of Arizona. I have complained about something for 30 years to all my local people that it is totally un-American that I can't go into a blood testing place and just order my own test. Am I pregnant? Do I have HIV? What is my A1C? We write on the internet ... Oh no. Oh no. You have to go through the doctor's turnstile and make an appointment, he might not be able ... You got to get your little note from Sister Mary Aloysius and carry the bathroom pass all the way to the bathroom and finally they pass law that a red-blooded American can go into any of these places and order their own damn tests and take it. And I'm like, "God!" I mean, these are Americans. They're cowboys. They grew up on ranches. How did we ever get so far that you couldn't even order your own pregnancy test without getting permission from a doctor? I mean it's just crazy.
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Chris Kammer:
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Yeah, yeah.
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Howard Farran:
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But, hey. We're way over time. But I just want to tell you guys, I bet your father is looking down on you very proud. I mean big time, Chris. Jack, the man. Jacqueline thank you so much for coming on this show, talking to my homies today.
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Jacqueline R.:
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My pleasure.
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Howard Farran:
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And I hope my homies get out there and start fighting the real fight. Let's go from being Dr. Pepper, Dr. Dre, Dr. Seuss, to a real doctor. Let's talk about oral cancer and HPV to moms and their kids who are under ten. Let's start giving flu shots. Let's start realizing that we're actually stomatologists. In Russia, we'd be a stomatologist. We'd be a real doctor. And it's time that we start realizing the mouth is connected to the nose and the toes.
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Chris Kammer:
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Amen.
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Jacqueline R.:
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Right on.
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Howard Farran:
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Alright, thanks for coming on the show. And hey, do you know that PR guy that you talked about?
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Chris Kammer:
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Jess Todtfeld.
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Jacqueline R.:
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Jess.
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Howard Farran:
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Yeah? Tell him to come on my show because in marketing we've done podcasts on SEO, direct mail, we've done all that. But we've never done a podcast on a PR firm. So that'd be a neat show.
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Chris Kammer:
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He'd love to do that. I'll get him for you.
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Howard Farran:
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Tell him if he wants to talk to my homies just email me howard@dentaltown.com and it'd be our only podcast we've ever done on "What is a PR firm?" I bet most of these kids listening don't even know what a PR agency does.
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Chris Kammer:
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That'd be great.
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Howard Farran:
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Alright buddy, you guys have a rocking hot day.
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Chris Kammer:
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Thanks Howard. Take care. Jacque, good seeing you. Howard, love you.
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Jacqueline R.:
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See you!
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