Sir, J. Mew has been giving the orthodontic world and the general population his opinion now for a number of years, in the dental press, the national newspapers and even on television. This can be condensed down to two things, that most orthodontists are damaging patients' faces and that they would not do so if only they adopted Mr Mew's treatment ideas. Not content with inventing a new brace he has to invent a new treatment, not orthodontics but orthotropics.

So, yet again, another opinion piece in the October issue, called Science versus empiricism. After reading this confusing article one is no nearer understanding what Mr Mew's orthotropics is or does. What orthotropics seems to be, although this is not clear, is the use of functional appliances with added tongue exercises. Since most orthodontists use functionals, and tongue exercises are likely to have no effect then one can only assume that he is doing the same as everyone else. The problem is that Mr Mew has a theory but nothing else to back it up. Therefore can I please ask of Mr Mew three things: 1) stop proclaiming how right you are, we get the message but I'm afraid it will be ignored until you, 2) publish the details of your orthotropic treatment so we can actually find out what it is, a suitable title would be Orthotropics a step-by-step guide (please don't suggest that I could join the London School of Orthotropics to find out) and last but by no means least, 3) publish some evidence that it works, a double blind clinical trail would be nice but even an audit of 50 sequential cases would do as a start. You may be able to convince a few non-sceptical individuals that you are right but most of us are not prepared to ask our patients to do tongue exercises when they are likely to have no effect and neither should you. I am constantly disregarding treatments that are overcomplicated and work no better than the simple ones, why not give it a go, you may be surprised.