It seems, appropriate that as this issue is dated to arrive on the Easter weekend it should start with a biblical quote. In the case of the Gospel of Matthew chapter 19 verse 14, the context of 'Suffer the little children...' was to 'allow' or 'permit' children to approach Jesus. In the case of the research paper in this issue (Olley et ah, online article E13) it is what we understand the word suffer to mean in one context in the 21st century: the extraction of teeth from children under general anaesthetic. The debate over the reasons for not only the continuing, but quite shockingly the dramatic increase in the number of children admitted to hospital in England for the extraction of teeth due to caries encompasses many of the well known and well rehearsed arguments. Trying to get to grips with these various strands is, however, like trying to catch mercury; the fibres slip through the fingers and elude capture, denying anything approaching a comprehensive examination or logical and concerted forward planning. We are all weary of the phrase 'caries is a preventable disease'. In fact one has to question the pragmatic truth of that statement in the context of this matter. Adding the qualification that caries is in theory a preventable disease might be more realistic since we in the profession and we in the wider sense of public health and society continue to utterly fail to prevent it, sometimes seemingly almost wilfully.
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