editorial
The Truth about the Truth
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Dentists and patients must question the authority and motivation of purveyors of oral health information.
ruth encompasses beliefs and statements in accordance with fact and reality. It is always possible and, often the case in the dental literature or commercial media, that an author or speaker has a vested interest in recognizing, accepting, ignoring or outright denying a fact or reality. Unless a reader or listener subjects a representer of fact and their representation to a thorough vetting process and engages in a scientific dialogue with all competing viewpoints, the reader or listener may never encounter the truth. In our search for truthful oral health information, the dental profession must ensure our dental literature provides evidence-based, and to the best of our ability, unbiased expert information, engage in open scientific debate with dissenting opinions, and educate dentists and patients to appropriately investigate the credibility of all oral health information and its sources. Barriers to Search for Truth The search for money, power and influence increasingly supersedes the search for truth in today’s political, commercial and, regretfully, professional arenas. While dental journalism has, to a great extent, maintained its integrity in the face of the commercialization of healthcare, it must remain vigilant to critically evaluate research methodologies and reduce bias and conflicts of interest in the dental literature. In addition, the dental profession and our patients must similarly critique oral health information presented in the commercial media.
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JUNE/JULY 2022
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The New York State Dental Journal
Entanglements between dental researchers and manufacturers, vendors, insurers and government agencies create conflicts and introduce bias that threatens the credibility of our dental literature. Entanglements between media sources and corporate entities and political factions can deceptively disguise private agendas as news. A lack of transparency regarding the conflicts of interests inherent in these compromised relationships has given rise to two false premises that increasingly permeate our search for truth in oral health information. First, educational and research institutions, government agencies and professional journals possess the exclusive and unquestioned authority to define the body of scientifically proven medically substantiated knowledge. Second, the American public cannot be trusted to read or hear conflicting data or dissenting opinions contrary to the institutional narrative. Strict reliance upon these false premises make the truth unknowable. Legal Systems’ Search for the Truth Legal systems around the world utilize two main legal fact-finding processes in their search for truth: the inquisitorial and adversarial. In the inquisitorial process, the court, often one judge alone, investigates the circumstances to gather all facts and evidence, both pro and con, and makes a final determination. It focuses on neutral fact-finding, objectivity and shared information to ideally offer greater access to the truth. However, reliance upon one in-
