I wonder how many people will toss their toothbrushes after only reading the headline and develop problems as a result. Seems like journalistic malpractice.
Why? Because her knowledge is tribal ritual knowledge, not a scientific one. Her knowledge is a bunch of rules in a form "if <symptom> then <treatment>". Completely useless knowledge for my decision making process.
So it is a good thing when mass-media brings an attention to this sad fact. We need to bring an attention to this, to make medicine to think big phylosophical questions and to change itself. On the way of this we can damage people with a bad decision making process, who could stop brushing their tooth because of headlines. It is bad, but there are upsides of that: next time when they come to a dentist, they will get an evidence that their decision making process is not perfect. So they will be able to learn something. To my mind, a couple of teeth as a payment for an improved decision making process is a good deal.
1. It is not full of shit, there are only one word in a phrasing that makes the headline misleading. It is "surprisingly". In medicine there are nothing surprising when there are not enough scientific verification for a conventional wisdom. And yes, I'm ok with it.
2. It doesn't serve the purpose of getting people to trust their doctors less. If someone do it the wrong way, the reality would fix it anyway. It is a good outcome. People would learn how to do decision making, doctors would be forced to rethink ways they persuade their patients that doctors know better. It is more contraversial, I agree, but I can live with it. Why should I have less information I need, if someone cannot deal properly with information of this kind?
You know, I'm riding bike as I rode before despite of risk of retina detachement. I decided that 10 years of riding is good enough evidence for me. When I have no access to a scientific knowledge on topic, I have no other options except to fall back to use an anecdotal evidence. In any case I'm not going to through out my bike, I like it and I believe that psychological health is more important than physical.
(At the same time I acknowledge, that article doesn't express it in such a wording, it does it more vague, leaving some crucial information behind links and stressing the point of lack of evidence, to justify the headline. It is clumsy.)
Also in the article mentioned yearly X-rays, frequency of brushing, scaling and polishing, bonded amalgams, interdental brush, preventive visits. Not every in the exact sense that "little evidence found", and I didn't bother to visit the all linked articles to see what is there, but nevertheless, I want to point, that brushing and flossing is just a part of the article.
In any case I see that the headline is good enough. After some thinking I even do not see "surprisingly" as a redundant word: surprise is a subjective feeling and the author can be surprised when I'm not. Moreover I guess that not only the author was surprised but some of his readers also.
edit: typo
It's not 'malpractice' and it's a mistake to think that what you consider journalism is anything other than a vehicle to sell advertising in the end. There seems to be this assumption that what is written (especially and actually in the NY Times (which I do read and pay for)) is pure and good and the people writing spend untold hours to get the story right and fairly balanced. My anecdote is when I was interviewed a few times in the past by the NYT the writer fed me conclusions and it was very easy to figure out what to say in order to get my name printed. (A contrary position to the point and stated vehemently was almost certainly the way to go..)
It's concerning to me how prevalent this seems to be in a number of Very Important news memes we've been listening to for the last several years.
I would bet it's not only profitability but also ROI that dictates how long a paper can part with a journalist for his investigation in a story before it becomes too much time in the eyes of management; the highly comprehensive piece does not bring that many more readers and possibly even less if the topic at hand is very specific.
As well politics on the other hand are dealt with on a daily basis and accuracy can more easily be measured even by the mainstream reader unlike a highly specialized field.
What about journalism to you means it should have some kind of a higher calling? The people working in that industry have jobs and families to feed. If they simply did the right thing they wouldn't be employed very long if their competitors didn't follow the same path.
When 'journalists' write either left leaning or right leaning pieces are they being circumspect and covering all angles with fairness? Or are they just making sure they have food on the table and/or ensuring that readers continue to patronize the paper (or broadcast) that they work for?
It's nice to think that someone else who has to earn a living and feed their family should be 'above it all' but in reality that is never going to be the case.
Maybe a better idea is to teach children in school over and over that what you read and what is reality are two different things. Don't believe what you read.