Dental Floss, the Truth and the Efficacy of Research

The saying when you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail is true. As a new student of research, I'm seeing the connections to, and the importance of, research everywhere. People without even a passing interest or awareness of research however, could not escape the story trending lately about the effectiveness of dental floss. I was amazed at how innocuous a story as dental hygiene was the lead item for a brief period on television news while simultaneously blowing up on Twitter. I think this story speaks to something a little more profound than gum disease; it speaks to what we think is common knowledge, or more specifically scientifically correct, suddenly being challenged. It's also interesting that a lot of the stories in the media focused on the validity of the research that supported flossing as a part of good dental hygiene. Some of the research was sponsored by the industry that makes billions of dollars a year selling dental floss, hardly an impartial sponsor. After the body of research was reviewed, the number of participants, and the length of how long the subjects were studied was also questionable. Perhaps it would serve the general public more if people understood what a peer review is, how a body of research develops and changes over time, and most importantly, how critical it is to at least try and eliminate bias in a research study. It is kind of tricky though, to encapsulate all that minutia about research, in a 140 character tweet.