-----Original Message-----
From: seeckert@mayo.edu
To: niznick@aol.com
Sent: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 3:03 PM
Subject: RE: Please Print this Letter to the Editor, responding to last
issues' Editorial, in your next issue
TO DR. STEVEN
ECKERT, EDITOR OF JOMI,
January
21, 2007
DEAR
DR. ECKERT:
I RECEIVED
YOUR EMAIL DATED JANUARY 18, 2007, RESPONDING NEGATIVELY TO MY SUBMISSION
OF A LETTER TO THE EDITOR (“LETTER”) SENT LESS THAN 24 HOURS
EARLIER. BELOW ARE MY POINT-BY-POINT RESPONSES TO YOUR REASONS FOR REFUSING
TO PUBLISH MY LETTER. I RESPECTFULLY
REQUEST THAT YOU CONSULT WITH YOUR EDITORIAL BOARD AND RECONSIDER YOUR
DECISION IN LIGHT OF THE INFORMATION PROVIDED IN MY LETTER AND THE RESPONSES
BELOW. IF YOU PERSIST IN THIS
DECISION, I WILL HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO DISTRIBUTE A COPY OF MY LETTER
ALONG WITH A COPY OF THIS LETTER TO ALL MEMBERS OF THE ACADEMY OF OSSEOINTEGRATION
THROUGH THE MAIL AND INTERNET, GIVING THIS CONTROVERSY MORE ATTENTION
THAT IT WOULD RECEIVE BY JUST PUBLISHING IT IN YOUR NEXT ISSUE.
GERALD
NIZNICK DMD MSD
PRESIDENT,
IMPLANT DIRECT LLC.
************************************************************************************************************
Dear Dr. Niznick,
Thank you for your letter. As you know, editorials are designed
to be provocative. It is gratifying to see that Dr. Watzek's editorial
has achieved this goal.
NIZNICK
RESPONSE: It also achieved the goal of being inaccurate in its facts
related to the advent of oral implants and in its conclusion that implant
innovation and lower prices were mutually exclusive. I doubt that the
goal of an editorial is to publish misinformation that is then allowed
to go unchallenged.
ECKERT:
JOMI has traditionally not published letters to the editor.
NIZNICK
RESPONSE: The JOMI has in the past published a number of my Letters
to the Editor and refused to publish others. Below are some of these
Letters, preserved in the
Caveat Lector-- Reader Beware 1984-1999 section of
www.implantdirect.com
web site. Dr. Watzek's Editorial is no different.
-
"Scientific Review" Used
by Nobelpharma Spokesman, Albrektsson, to Attack Competitors™:
A Response to Albrektsson T et al.: The long-term efficacy of currently
used dental implants: A review and proposed criteria of success. Int
J Oral Maxillofac Implants 1986;1(1):11-25
-
Fabrication of "Research"
Findings to Discredit a Competitor of the Branemark System™:
Responses to Kinni ME et al.: Force transfer by osseointegration implant
devices, Int J Oral Maxillofac Implants 1987;2(1):11-14)
and Henry PJ: Comparative surface analysis of two osseointegrated
implant systems, Int J Oral Maxillofac Implants 1987;2(1):23-27.
-
Applying False Evaluation Criteria
to Discredit a Competitor's Implan™t: Response to Malmqvist JP and
Sennerby L: Clinical Report on the Success of 47 Consecutively Placed
Core-Vent Implants Followed From 3 Months to 4 Years. Int J Oral Maxillofac
Implants 1990, Vol. 5, No. 3, Pages 211-212.
-
Slanted Speakers Platform is Falsely Heralded as the
"State of Osseointegration in Private Practice™":
Letter to the Editor in response to Proceedings of Osseointegration:
10 Years in Private Practice, 1982 - 1992, held October 9 and 10,
1992, at the Lansdowne Convention Center, Leesburg, VA. Reported in
the International Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Implants, 1994,
Volume 9, Special Supplement. Published in the Int J Oral Maxillofac
Implants 1995;10(1):1-2.
-
"Scientific" Research Designed
to Compensate for the Inferior Strength of Grade 1 CP Ti Branemark
Implants™: Letter to the Editor in response to Rangert B, Krogh
P, Langer B, Van Roekel N: Bending overload and implant fracture:
A retrospective clinical analysis. Int J Oral Maxillofac Implants
1995;10(3):326-334. Published in the Int J Oral Maxillofac
Implants 1996;11(4):431-432.
ECKERT: Given the number of manuscripts that this journal must
manage it simply cannot afford to use pages for such letters.
NIZNICK
RESPONSE: If your concern is the availability of pages in JOMI, I will
gladly forego the two pages of advertisements I intended on placing
in your next journal. There seems
to be no restriction on the number of pages where advertising is concerned
with 34 pages of advertising, including two from Implant Direct, that
appear in the same issue as Dr. Watzek’s Editorial.
ECKERT:
In addition to the concern for page count there is also a concern
for subjective comments in the scientific literature. Readers
understand the purpose of editorials. Readers know that editorials
are opinion based, subjective commentaries.
With letters to the editor the nature of the letter is not as
clear.
NIZNICK
RESPONSE: Dr. Watzek’s Editorial, while his opinion,
is given credibility beyond its merits by your decision to publish it.
My opinion, expressed in my Letter, and supported by references to published
scientific and financial statements, is equally deserving of publication
to set the record straight. It is a well-established principal that
a lie unchallenged becomes like the truth. Dr. Watzek’s editorial
endorses the false premise, perpetuated by the major implant companies,
that there is a direct correlation between higher prices and product
innovations. As the Editor of a Journal that thrives on 34 pages of
advertisements mostly related to dental implants,
I can understand why
this false premise is one that serves the interests of your publisher
because it is the high prices that are paying for the advertisement.
ECKERT: Your
letter raised interesting issues. It describes financial issues
that the readership rarely sees.
NIZNICK
RESPONSE: All the more reason to publish my Letter if it raises issues
that would be of interest to your readers, and describes financial issues
that the readership rarely sees.
ECKERT:
Although this information may be of interest to readers it is not information
that is of scientific interest. Perhaps these comments would be
more appropriate in publications related to dental economics.
NIZNICK
RESPONSE: My Letter deals with financial issues related to the cost
of dental implants because the Editorial to which I am responding, falsely
supported the notion that higher prices and product innovations were
inextricably joined. The financial matters I cite are from published
financial statements of the two larges dental implant companies and
show, contrary to the Editorial’s main premise that these companies
only spend 3.5-5% of their revenue on research and 10X that amount on
marketing so research can not be the reason for higher implant prices
as the Editorial infers.
ECKERT: Regarding the history of implant dentistry,
my impression is that Dr. Watzek was referring to the era of predictable
implant therapy in contrast to some early implant designs that were
not as predictable. He described implant dentistry from the time
that osseointegration had been observed.
I think that this is
the reason for a difference of opinion between your letter and his editorial.
NIZNKCK
RESPONSE: Your “impression” of Dr. Watzek’s statements,
flies in the face of the plain meaning of his words.
Your readers will most likely interpret his inaccurate historic
statement that “the advent of
oral implants, (was) initiated by Branemark about 40 years ago”
as a historic fact, which it is not. Your refusal to publish my Letter,
with cited published references proving the contrary, including one
from Branemark’s 1977 Textbook, serves only to perpetuate the
myth that was carefully constructed to promote the sale of the Branemark
Implant.
ECKERT:
Certainly
there are many newsletters, economics journals, magazines and Internet
sites that would serve as better forums for your comments.
I encourage you
to send your comments to those sites.
NIZNICK
RESPONSE: If any of those newsletters, economic journals, magazines
and Internet sites had published Dr. Watzek’s Editorial, I would
have certainly directed my comments to those publications. The fact
is that you approved the publication of his editorial in your journal
and that is the appropriate forum to publish my response to those statements.
That is what a “Letter to the Editor” is intended
to accomplish. Refusal to publish my Letter to the Editor exactly as
I wrote it, will result in the necessity of
circulating copies of both my Letter to the Editor and this letter to
every Academy
of Osseointegration
member and to post it on my website, which received 10,000 unique visitors
the first week of this year alone.
Respectfully
Gerald
Niznick DMD MSD
President
Implant Direct LLC