Malocclusion: Modern clinical research

Send your letters to the Editor, British Dental Journal, 64 Wimpole Street, London, W1G 8YS. bdj@bda.org. Priority will be given to letters less than 500 words long. Authors must sign the letter, which may be edited for reasons of space.

Sir, I must protest at the contents of John Mew's letter (BDJ 2018; 225: 95–96).

What he says is untrue. His licence to practice was not removed by the GDC for promoting 'orthotropics' but for other very good reasons concerning his professional conduct. His two hearings can be reviewed on line at https://olr.gdc-uk.org/hearings?name=MEW,%20John%20Roland%20Chandley#filterresults.

It is also quite untrue that his erasure has prevented him from providing the evidence that his treatment methods are effective.

Before his licence to practice was removed, he had 30 years in which he could have attempted to do so. Instead he tried to convince me and my academic colleagues that it was our responsibility to undertake this!

Not only myself, but also the late Professors Houston and Moss spent a great deal of time trying to persuade Mr Mew that, in an age of prospective randomised clinical trials, any retrospective analysis of selected cases which Mr Mew believed he had treated successfully by his methods was pointless and did not conform to contemporary standards of clinical research, all to no avail.