Plaque Fighter

American plaque sufferers, all 100 million of you, take heart. In addition to special pastes and floss, there is now Interplak, a battery-operated brush specially engineered to combat the residue of food and bacteria that collects between and under teeth and can eventually lead to gum disease. Unlike the head of an ordinary electric model, the one on Interplak does not move; instead, its ten tiny tufts rotate, each making 1 1/2 turns, then reversing direction. "All the power is in the bristles," says John Trenary, president of Dental Research Corp., the Georgia-based firm that makes the device. Company-sponsored studies show that the machine removes about 98% of plaque, twice as much as hand brushing accomplishes. Introduced last November and initially available only through dentists or directly from the manufacturer, Interplak is now reaching stores across the nation. Price tag: $99. Though some dentists argue that more surveys should be done and the cost is too high, others give Interplak the ultimate compliment of the profession. Says Dr. John Love of the School of Dentistry at the University of Missouri in Kansas City: "It's a very aggressive brush."