Abstract
AADEJ President Chris Smiley draws a parallel between his personal experience of a well-intentioned but chaotic "stealth cleaning campaign" of his study by his wife, which left him unable to locate important documents, and the systematic scrubbing of freely available resources by federal agencies. He highlights concerns that politically driven directives are restricting information dissemination, citing examples from the CDC and USDA related to terms like "evidence-based," "science-based," and climate change, as well as vital health topics. The article quotes the British Medical Journal's strong condemnation of such actions, calling it "absurd" and "egregious" to erase medically relevant terminology. Smiley emphasizes that these actions directly impact dental communicators who rely on evidence-based research and data accessibility to inform their publications and public recommendations. He urges dental editors and journalists to proactively "methodically organize and safeguard valuable information" by:
- Assessing and maintaining functional links on association websites.
- Archiving current and past publications through ADA Commons, which is free for state and local dental societies.
- Considering the creation of collections within ADA Commons for critical web content and historical association documents.
The President concludes by stressing the importance of this "house cleaning" to preserve the professional record against politically motivated campaigns.
Recommended Citation
Smiley, Christopher J.
(2025)
"Safeguarding our Literature,"
AADEJ - The Communicator: Vol. 11:
Iss.
1, Article 3.
Available at:
https://commons.ada.org/aadej-communicator/vol11/iss1/3