As many of you know OCF has been a promoter of the Biotene dry mouth products for many years. I am putting up this post or to let everyone know that we are no longer advocating that anyone use any of these products. We have taken all their information down from our website, and we will not be working with them as sponsors for any of our events.

I will elaborate on this over the weekend in detail, but the products have changed into some cheap, unhelpful, and potentially harmful products since GSK recently reformulated them to make more profits. All the good ingredients such as the expensive enzymes, are gone from them, and they have added other chemistries to them that might actually be harmful to you.

This is all happening to generate more profits for corporate shareholders. There is nothing of value in these products any longer, and if you are paying these big dollars for them you are wasting your money. You might as well by a $1.50 tube of Colgate or Crest at WalMart and save your money. In a post following this I will detail the whole situation, after I talk to my good friend Michael Pelaco who started Laclede and created the chemistries that were known as Biotene. But if you are buying these right now, I suggest that you do not. It is a financial waste of money, and when I get the full ingredient list to you this weekend, you will see what they have put in these products that is potentially harmful to you. This is nothing but corporate greed at its worst, and the loss of a great product from the marketplace.

OCF is working with two other companies to try to get someone interested in this small niche marketplace to put a product out in the world that we can all use, that will be helpful for those of us that suffer from dry mouth.

This is a particularly sad turn of events that a multi billion dollar company would ruin something that had a following and worked well, to make a few more dollars for their shareholders. This has become a topic of discussion on boards around the web including the Amazon product comments section. GSK has made a huge mistake. They think that people will not notice and that this cheap substitute will not jar the HABITS that users have when they buy the product. This is an insult to their loyal customers.

But I am not surprised that after spending more than 190 million dollars to buy the company, that they think that no one will notice that they have corrupted the product. This happens so often when a giant entity buys some small company. A large entity buys a unique, innovative, company or product, and then once they own the brand, they start changing it to make greater profits. Michael P. is a person that wanted to create something that would help those of us that suffer from these treatment related issues. I can tell you that he is heartbroken that they have ruined something that he dedicated a large portion of his life to bring to market to help all of us. But he is no longer involved with the product or the company. Now OCF is going to distance ourselves from this as well. All you have to do is read the active ingredients label on the product, to realize that it is a brand new product/formula. One which is lesser in every way.

Thanks for watching out for everyone and informing us about this change. What a shame that greed won out!!!

I just bought a new tube of the toothpaste and some of their gum yesterday (nice timing ) and after reading Brian's post I compared the old tube labeling and ingredients to my new tube. HUGE DIFFERENCES. The new tube list ZERO ingredients other than fluoride and even that's a different type. The old tube expounded on the benefits of their paste for dry mouth but not so with the new tube as it only says it's basically a toothpaste.

Not so with the gum as everything is the same with the one I got yesterday with ones purchased weeks ago but that could be that I just bought gum manufactured before the change.

I will be interested to see the future posts Brian talks about.

The gum was never a big seller, and there is likely new old stock around everywhere. I don't think they will continue making it since it hasn't been a big profit center for them.

Well I have a stockpile of 14 boxes so I'm good for appx 224 days give ot take.

Bart sent me a PM with the following comment about my post re the Biotene gum. I'm posting his comment to me because Bart says this Thread is blocked from comments other than us people in RED and I wasn't aware of that.

"But I wouldn't recommend paying the freight, when any gum with a non-sucrose sweetner, and especially with a Xylitol sweetner, such as Trident (I use their "Tropical Twist" flavor and get it in 3-pack plastic packaging.

The Trident (and I'm sure that most of the big brands offer a Xylitol variant) is MUCH cheaper than the biotene, and the gum itself seems to last much longer as well.

I learned about this from my dentist, who sells mints made of Xylitol for dry mouth."

Uhboy, what a drag. I've got probably 2 or 3 unopened tubes of Biotene toothpaste on hand, at about 10 bucks a pop, as well as the same in mouthwash.

Brian, do you recommend a substitute?

Thanks for all the great work per usual.

I've noticed that there are a lot of other brands at the drugstores who are jumping on the "dry mouth product" bandwagon...i.e. Colgate, Crest, Act. Not exactly sure which companies, but they are some of the big ones that have had products on the market for a long time. I suspect that they are trying to get their share of the marketplace. Perhaps these companies knew of the purchase of the Biotene company and scurried to get their products on shelves. It wouldn't surprise me if they contained (essentially) the very same formula. I'll have to compare labels the next time I go into CVS. Thank you, Brian, for always looking out for us and doing what is best for OCF.

This stinks! I used the toothpaste during treatment as it was the only thing that didn't burn the heck out of my mouth. I've been using the Oral Balance gel at night as it kept my mouth moist.

Any recommendations for a similar product?

"T"

David2, If you have the old formula those tubes are still OK.