Sir, as long as we continue to treat malocclusion as if it has no effect on the rest of the body, and as long as we believe teeth just are crooked and don't become crooked because of things we do, and as long as we let children grow up (dentally) deformed before we begin to intervene, and until we see that the maxilla collapses in all three dimensions of space even if there is a Class II malocclusion... then we'll never be free.

For the first 25 years of my career as an orthodontist, I too thought I had an open mind. But it was my eyes that were closed. Once you begin to look at the changes to the modern human face that have been amply documented, you will see what the Drs Mew see, and you will be freed of the narrow and misleading focus of the Angle Classification. Not only freed, but empowered to influence the growth of the child's face in ways you've never imagined. We need to look again, not for research, but at the faces you see every day.

1. Clifton, New Jersey