The &quot;10M teeth&#x2F;yr&quot; statistic, assuming it&#x27;s even accurate, doesn&#x27;t seem like that much to me. Most people have four wisdom teeth. That seems to imply that less than half the people in USA have gotten this procedure. (It also makes one wonder why TFA didn&#x27;t work a little harder to get current&#x2F;relevant&#x2F;accurate statistics.)<p>It&#x27;s true that many people who have had their wisdom teeth pulled didn&#x27;t need that. It&#x27;s also the case that many people who didn&#x27;t have them pulled while they were young, have lived to regret that.<p>Most dentists would be happy to never pull another wisdom tooth. However, they&#x27;ve taken an oath to provide a standard of care, and they can&#x27;t refer every wisdom tooth case to expensive oral surgeons. (Well, I think some dentists do refer every one of these out, but that&#x27;s a threat to patient retention.)<p>USA simultaneously has too many and not enough dentists. Too many, because there are lots of unnecessary procedures done. Not enough, because many poor people don&#x27;t go to the dentist until they&#x27;re in severe pain, and at that point they need many teeth pulled. Those who live long enough eventually need all their teeth pulled anyway...