Archive for 2002
Medical Journals, Journalists Confuse People with Discussions of Risk
Ross Gittins wrote an excellent op-ed for Australia’s The Age about one of the biggest problems with the way journalists report on risk research — they inevitably tell readers and viewers what the increase in risk was, but rarely the absolute risk.
Gittins points to the recent study of oestrogen and progestin combination therapy that found a slight increase in the risk of certain forms of cancer among women taking the combination therapy.
As Gittins notes, it was widely reported that the therapy increased the risk of breast cancer by 26 percent, the risk of stroke by 41 percent, and the risk of heart attack by 29 percent. But, aside from the fact that these are extremely low increases in risk — far below the 100 percent in risk that such studies should have in order to avoid the possibility of confounding circumstances — knowing the precentage increases in risk is not very helpful without knowing what the risk was in the first place.
For example, another way of saying that combination hormone replacement theory increases the risk of breast cancer by 26 percent is that a woman on it has increased her risk of getting breast cancer from 1 in 333 to 1 in 263. Similarly, the change in risk of heart attack goes from 1 in 333 to 1 in 270.
Even worse is that in this case the authors of the study themselves highlighted the increased percentage of risk, and as Gittins writes, “You have to delve deep into their article to find the information needed to beat their true meaning out of them . . .So the primary blame oges to the authors of the article, not the journos who reported on it.”
Both medical journals and journalists need to do a much better job of making clear just what increases in risk mean and discuss the limits of epidemiological research as well. Otherwise these studies end up creating a lot of hysteria and concern based largely on a lack of understanding by laypeople about what the study ultimately means.
Source:
When journalists juggle figures, the public is at risk. Ross Gittins, The Age, August 7, 2002.
Tags: Uncategorized
Controlled Study Finds No Benefit to Ginkgo Biloba
A controlled study of older people who took ginkgo biloba found no evidence of any improvement in cognitive function. Advocates of the drug claim it improves memory and other cognitive abilities.
The study, conducted by researchers at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., took 230 people between 60 and 82 years old. Half received 40 milligrams of ginkgo biloba three times per day for six weeks, while the other half received a placebo.
After six weeks, researchers subjected participants to tests to gauge their memory, attention, concentration and other skills. No difference was found in performance between individuals taking gingko and those taking the placebo.
“When taken following the manufacturer’s instructions,” the researchers concluded, “gingko provides no measurable benefit in memory or related cognitive function.”
Sources:
New study a blow to ginkgo’s reputation. Gina Greene, CNN, August 20, 2002.
Ginkgo ‘does not improve memory’. The BBC, August 20, 2002.
Tags: Miscellaneous Alternative Medicine
Fresh Debate Over MMR Vaccine
American researcher Vijendra Singh fired off a new round of debate over the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine earlier this month with a new study claiming that he found an unusual MMR antibody in 75 children who had autism. Singh claimed that he did not find this antibody in the 92 control children who did not have autism.
Singh argues that autism is an autoimmune disorder that attacks the myelin sheath that protects nerve fibers in the brain.
Singh’s study, published in the Journal of Biomedical Science, was criticized by British doctors for making claims that his data do not justify. Great Britain’s Public Health Laboratory Service issued a statement saying,
This claim by the authors that they have identified abnormal measles-mumps-rubella antibodies in autistic children is not substantiated by the data in the paper. No abnormal virus-specific antibodies have been demonstrated. The data that they show as evidence that this component is one particular antigen of the measles virus is not credible.
It might not be credible to British doctors, but British citizens are finding the anti-MMR hype convincing. According to the BBC, from December 2001 to March 2002, the level of MMR vaccination fell from 76 percent to 70 percent, but did recover slightly by April to 72 percent. That low level of vaccination increases the risk of a general measles outbreak in Great Britain.
Sources:
Experts reject latest MMR research. The BBC, August 9, 2002.
New study suggests MMR link with autism. Sarah Boseley, The Guardian, August 9, 2002.
Tags: Vaccination
The Evils of Coffee
The United Nations Human Development Report 2001 included a section on the controversy over transonic crops, including efforts in some countries to ban all genetically modified foods. In an interesting sidebar, the report noted that many products which are now taken for granted were once also the subjects of much controversy and bans, including, of all things, coffee.
Many of the crops that dominate today’s global market went through long periods of rejection because of perceived risks. For example, coffee, now the world’s second largest traded commodity by value, has a history marked by episodes of vilification and outright bans. In London in 1674 the WOmen’s Petition Against Coffee protested “the grand inconveniences accruing to their sex from the excessive use of the drying and enfeebling liquor”. Opposition to coffee-houses often had a political foundation — King Charles II of England tried to ban them in 1675 because they were hotbeds of revolution.
In 1679, when coffee was perceived to be competing with wine in France, physicians attacked the drink. One physician suggested that coffee dried up brain fluids, leading to exhaustion, impotence and paralysis. In Germany, where coffee was equally controversial, physicians claimed that it caused female sterility and stillbirths. In 1732 Johann Sebastian Bach composed his Kaffee-Kantate partly as an ode to coffee and partly as a protest against the movement to stop women from drinking it. Concerned about the raining effect of green coffee imports on Prussia’s wealth, in 1775 Frederick the Great condemned the increase in coffee consumption as “disgusting” and urged his people to drink beer, like their ancestors.
Source:
Human Development Report 2001. United Nations, 2002.
Tags: Genetically Modified Food
New York Times Screws Up Correction of Global Warming Story
Back on July 10, this site noted that The New York Times ran both a story, and editorial and a Bob Herbert column claiming that temperatures in Alaska had increased by 7 degrees Fahrenheit in only 30 years. That claim was completely bogus and on July 11, the New York Times issued a correction,
A front-page article on June 16 about climate change in Alaska misstated the rise in temperatures there in the last 30 years. (The error was repeated in an editorial on Monday and in the Bob Herbert column on the Op-Ed page of June 24.) According to an assessment by the University of Alaska’s Center for Global Change and Arctic System Research, the annual mean temperature has risen 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit over 30 years, not 7 degrees.
Nice of them to run a correction, except that these numbers also appear to be bogus. According to the Alaska Climate Research Center,
In their 11 July, 2002 Edition, the New York Times ran a correction of the value of 7°F as used in the 16 June article, 24 June op/ed, and mentioned in an 8 July op/ed as well. The corrected value is now 5.4°F over a 30 year period. We still find the value of 5.4°F too great by a factor of 2 for the 1971 to 2000 period, the last 30 years. However, the possibility exists that the value of 5.4°F is in reference to a temperature change in some other earlier 30-year period.
Maybe on their next round of corrections, the New York Times will get closer to the actual temperature change — apparently it corrects errors in the newspaper on an iterative basis, getting closer and closer to the truth with each successive version.
Sources:
Corrections. The New York Times, July 11, 2001.
In response to the New York Times Article of 16 June 2002 and Op/Ed of 24 June 2002 - Update. Alaska Climate Research Center, July 12, 2002.
Tags: Global Warming
New York Times Leads in Global Warming Nonsense
The New York Times ran an editorial today praising the California legislature for passing a bill that sets strict CO2 emissions standards for automakers. Typically, while it slams the Bush administration for ignoring global warming science, it repeats an outright falsehood about temperature increases in Alaska. According to The Times,
Then came a more narrowly focused but equally disturbing report by The Times’s Timothy Egan about Alaska, where an astonishing seven-degree increase in average temperatures over 30 years has led to melting permafrost, sagging roads, dying forests, unexpected forest fires and disruption of marine life. Even Ted Stevens, the influential Republican senator from Alaska who usually has little patience with environmentalists, is openly alarmed about global warming’s potential cost to his home state, which could run into the billions of dollars, and is privately even more alarmed by Washington’s indifference.
But according to the Alaska Climate Research Center, Timothy Egan’s June 16, 2002 report is pure bunk.
The article “Alaska, No Longer So Frigid, Starts to Crack, Burn, and Sag” written by Timothy Egan, stated that the average temperature has risen seven degrees in the last 30 years. This statement was repeated in an editorial by Bob Herbert of 24 June 2002. This statement is incorrect. The correct warming for Alaska is about 1/3 of the quoted amount for the last climatological mean 1971 to 2000 (see table below). It should be pointed out that the table presents data from first class weather stations, which are professionally maintained and generate high quality data. The three stations, Barrow, Fairbanks, and Anchorage, represent a cross section of Alaska from north to south. Further, Barrow, situated in Northern Alaska, which gave the largest temperature increase, is the only long-term first class meteorological weather station in Northern Alaska. All changes are based upon the time period 1971 to 2000 and are compiled from a linear trend.
The table mentioned show a 30-year increase of +4.16 degrees Fahrenheit for Barrow, +1.07 for Fairbanks, +2.26 for Anchorage and +2.28 for Nome.
The Alaska Climate Research Center site also features a nice graph tracking average temperatures in Fairbanks over the last century, which shows a +2.2 degree Fahrenheit increase over the last 100 years.
But why should The Times let the facts get in the way?
Sources:
California Leads on Warming. The New York Times, July 8, 2002.
In response to the New York Times Article of 16 June 2002. Alaska Climate Research Center, June 2002.
Tags: Global Warming
London Mayor Offers Ridiculous Anti-MMR Argument
London Mayor Ken Livingstone recently announced that he would not allow his child to have the MMR vaccine and advised parents not to do so either. Livingstone based his recommendations on the fact that infants are fragile and money is not an issue in health care provision.
Livingstone’s deep analysis of the safety of the vaccine went something like this,
It seems to me that a child of those months, just 14 months is incredibly vulnerable. I remember having all these jabs separately — often you had quite a severe reaction. Why whack them all into a child at the same time?
Great Britain could probably save a lot of time and money by ditching medical research into vaccine safety and efficacy and instead simply relying on Livingstone’s impressions and recollections of his own childhood.
Livingstone also claimed that the MMR was done largely for monetary reasons saying,
It’s a question of huge savings of time and money and in no way would I inflict on a child that risk.
This is the dumbest thing anyone has yet said about the MMR vaccine. In case Livingstone has not noticed, Great Britain’s National Health System is already among the worst in Europe and is severely constrained by funding problems. For Livingstone to pretend that increasing the cost of vaccination is a trivial matter is absurd. Does Livingstone himself plan to pay the extra expense?
Source:
London mayor warns against MMR. The BBC, July 2, 2002.
Tags: Vaccination
Ugh — Irradiated Mail Syndrome
Steve Milloy wrote an story about the latest version of sick building syndrome, the infamous irradiated mail syndrome.
This made the news when a Congressional agency issue a report claiming that, “handling irradiated mail for substantial periods of time may be the cause, or a contributing cause, of adverse health symptoms reported by a significant number of Legislative Branch employees.”
But, as Milloy lays it out, this claim is pure bunk based on a ridiculous methodology,
The Office of Compliance sent information requests to 14,000 House and Senate employees. Less than 2 percent (215) responded. Of these 215 employees, only 148 responded to an immediate follow-up telephone interview. A few more responded to a subsequent follow-up interview.
Among the 215 respondents: 51 percent claimed experiencing headaches when handling the mail; 32 percent said their skin itched; 23 percent claimed burning and red eyes; 21 percent said they experienced nausea; 15 percent said they developed a visible rash; and 11 percent said they developed bloody noses.
Great a survey where less than 2 percent of people report non-medically verified symptoms that are the typical amalgam of symptoms associated with the syndrome of the week.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health noted in a follow-up that included taking air samples, the symptoms were likely the result of “heightened awareness and resultant employee stress from recent terrorist attacks.”
Source:
Irradiated mail syndrome?. Steven Milloy, Fox News, July 5, 2002.
Tags: Irradiation
Coloring the Debate Over Global Warming
Over at TechCentralStation.Com, Nick Schulz has a classic example of how ostensibly objective reports on global warming are driven by political reasons to gloss over problems and disputes about global warming science.
Schulz points to the The National Assessment of the Potential Consequence of Climate Variability and Change, a report on global warming developed during the Clinton administration. This report was in turn used as the basis for the National Academy of Sciences’ recent Climate Action Report which has garnered no small amount of debate.
The original draft of the report included to graphs that showed computer projected temperatures for the United States based on two separate computer models developed at the Canadian Climate Center and the Hadley Center respectively.
Now the National Assessment wanted to use both models and presented maps showing future temperature. The problem is that along with not accurately modeling historic temperatures, the Canadian Climate Center and Hadley Center models disagree amongst themselves about future temperatures in the United States. The Canadian model predicts that the most extreme temperatures will occur in the western United States, whereas the Hadley model has the Western United States relatively cool with the highest temperatures concentrated in the Midwest.
The draft originally contained two multi-colored maps that made the different predictions of the two models obvious (these can be viewed in Schulz’s article).
Of course that can’t be tolerated, so in the final version of the report, those maps were taken out and replaced with maps that relied on a different color scale whose effect is to minimize to the naked eye the differences between the two projections (again, see the maps in Schulz’s article).
As Schulz writes,
This stunt throws into question the whole assessment process. Roger Pielke, a respected atmospheric scientist at Colorado State who was involved with the drafting process at the time, said, “I’m disappointed in the whole process. This has been the most closed, unhealthy scientific process I’ve ever been involved in.”
Sounds a lot like the scientific method has been replaced with marketing methods to sell global warming to the public.
Source:
Coloring Climate Change. Nick Schulz, TechCentralStation.Com, June 28, 2002.
Tags: Global Warming
Increasing Life Span, Wealth Is Killing Westerners
As the media regularly remind us, the West faces an “epidemic of cancer.” Why is it that Europe, the United States and other countries have such high rates of cancer while people in places like Africa or Eastern Europe have such low rates? According to new study there are primarily two reasons: 1. Westerners live long enough to have a high risk of cancer and 2. Western countries are usually wealthy enough to devote significant resources for caring for cancer patients.
In a study published in Annals of Oncology, researchers examined cancer data from 17 countries from 1970 to 1992. According to the authors of the study,
In countries with well-developed economies, general mortality is falling, life expectancy is increasing, and the age distribution of the population is shifting towards the elderly. Because the incidence of almost all cancers rises steeply with age, the number of cancer cases is increasing, while major investment in early detection and treatment contributes to the long survival of cancer patients. All these factors result in higher cancer prevalence.
The last point — early detection and treatment is the most perverse. Imagine two countries, X and Y, of equal population where every year 10,000 new cases of cancer are diagnosed. But country X is wealthy with a 10 year average survival time, whereas country Y is a poor country with only a 1 year survival time. After 10 years, cancer prevalence in country X is 100 times as high as in country Y and its media start wondering why it is suffering from an epidemic of cancer while it’s poorer cousin is relatively cancer free.
Source
Longer lives in richer nations ‘increases incidence of cancer’. Lorna Duckworth, The Independent (UK), June 6, 2002.
Tags: Cancer