Toss the floss! It turns out dental flossing is barely useful, maybe even worthless. So reported the Associated Press (AP) and subsequently more than 150 news outlets, including The Washington Post (The Shaky Evidence for Flossing) and The New York Times' more powerful Feeling Guilty about Not Flossing? Maybe There's No Need.
The denture industry must be ecstatic; ultimately all this is driven by flipping on its head the old maxim that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” Few studies have been done on flossing and there are several reasons for this, but the most ironic is that the benefit of flossing is obvious and has been observed by so many experts for so long.
So when the AP last year filed Freedom of Information Act requests with the HHS and the Department of Agriculture to provide the publication with evidence that flossing works, it was a bit like asking for studies proving that the sun rises in the morning. Subsequently, the flossing recommendation was removed from this year's federal dietary guidelines, which by law must be evidence-based.
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