19412

Your article suggests that somehow X rays caused low-birth-weight babies in women who had their teeth X-rayed during their pregnancies. Here is an alternative possibility: Perhaps unhealthy people are more likely to have low-birth-weight babies and bad teeth.

Stephen Wood
Orlando, FL.

The article hypothesizes that the dental X-rays hitting the thyroid glands of pregnant women affect birth outcomes. This tentative conclusion was reached without evaluating the thyroid glands of the affected mothers or the controls and therefore seems premature.