Letters to the editor

The amusing image of Professor Burke ‘eating his hat’ in the January issue¹ and his elegantly chosen words about porcelain laminate veneers reminded me that I was partly responsible for the erroneous belief that ceramic veneers were an American invention.

A number of people in the USA claimed that distinction including Simonsen and Calamia,² Calamia³ and Horn.⁴ In the mid 1980s, one enterprising US company claimed that they had a patent for ‘Chameleon Veneers' as well as their associated luting products. Their patent lawyers demanded royalties from UK dentists to use ‘their’ technique and claimed that all dentists had to use a ‘Chameleon certified’ laboratory for the manufacture of any ceramic veneers. Most people ignored them, but I had forgotten ‘why’ until I wrote an article in 2011 called ‘Porcelain pornography’,⁵ which criticized extensive elective tooth destruction as being an abuse of the original conservative ceramic veneer concept, and denouncing what I regarded as their now widespread over-prescription for minor aesthetic problems. In that article's references, I attributed their invention to Calamia³ and to Horn.⁴