There is an interesting editorial in the July 2012 Oral Surg Oral Med Oral Pathol Oral Radiol titled Accuracy, fact checking, and wiki-timelines by Craig S. Miller (vol. 114, no. 1, pp. 1-3).
In the article Craig makes a mention of an article in the Wall Street Journal titled If Your Teeth Could Talk . . ..
Craig points out numerous details of the article that are inaccurate. He states that the following statement
“…American Heart Association, the American Medical Association and the American Orthopedic Association all urge people who have had a full joint replacement to take an antibiotic one hour before any dental visit for the rest of their lives to reduce the risk of post-surgical infections.”
is inaccurate on 6 accounts.
- The American Heart Association, the American Medical Association, and the American Orthopedic Association do not have a consensus statement on this topic.
- The American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons issued a statement on this topic and NOT the American Orthopedic Association.
- The American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons statement advises clinicians to consider antibiotic prophylaxis for joint replacement patients and does NOT urge patients to take these drugs.
- The American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons does NOT recommend to “to take an antibiotic one hour before any dental visit.”
- There is NO mention of the statement “the rest of their lives” in the recommendations.
- There is no mention of the controversy of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons recommendations.
Craig then provides another inaccurate statement that appears in the Wall Street Journal article.
Craig then states:
“It is disconcerting that so many inaccuracies appear in this article, because the Wall Street Journal is considered to be an excellent resource of information and the paper is widely read. What becomes clear from this dissection of an article, however, is that the newspaper’s fact checking related to this report on oral health literacy appears to be less than ideal.“
Craig then goes into stating that readers may readily accepted published information as established fact.
I have previously highlighted how published information is used by corporate interests to manipulate your thoughts due to this very reason. See the post http://blog.teethremoval.com/astroturfing-and-how-your-thoughts-are-being-manipulated-by-corporate-interests/.
Craig then describes his experience with omitted information in dental journals:
“During the past 3 years, I have encountered numerous examples of dilemmas regarding accuracy of information submitted in a manuscript. One example that often appears is the absence of important and pertinent historical information that should be cited in the introduction.”
Craig then describes how he envisions a day where individuals publish key historical scientific timelines that acknowledge key advances, when they occurred, and who made the discovery, a process that he calls a “wiki-timeline.” I also like timelines and have actually seen a few of these on Wikipedia for certain topics but this is generally not the norm.
I have also reiterated the topic that everything you read on the internet is NOT true and how this is particularly challenging for the youth to understand in this post http://blog.teethremoval.com/lets-give-our-kids-a-chance-to-succeed/.