[ RadSafe ] ethics in research question

[Maury Siskel]

After sucking my thumb peacefully for months while reading about this 
tempest, I finally looked at Salsman's reference at:
http://www1.va.gov/gulfwar/docs/GulfWarNov03.pdf

Yes, the attribution to Dr. Kang is correct. But that remains far from a 
complete view of the situation. Follows several quotes regarding other 
studies (preponderance of evidence?) of this subject. Then from the same 
reference and to add some context, I've added a quote about similar 
studies of ALS among Gulf War veterans.

These flaps by Salsman do not help veterans, but may promote his 
popularity with anti-war, anti-nuclear folks.
Best,
Maury&Dog          (maurysis at peoplepc.com)

2.2  x  2  =  4.4
and
2  +  2  =  4 (except for large values of 2)
============================

" ...That study also reported greater rates of a birth defect in which 
the urethra terminates in an abnormal position in the penis, but only 
among infants conceived by female Gulf War veterans. However, the 
overall rate of birth defects was not higher among Gulf War veterans.

The Navy researchers acknowledged in their publication certain 
limitations of their study, including an inability to determine if the 
excess birth defects were caused by inherited or environmental factors, 
or were due to chance from various causes.

Also, several previous similar large studies have shown no statistically 
significant increase in birth defects among children born to Gulf War 
veterans.

The DoD-funded, Navy study does not provide solid proof that children of 
Gulf War veterans are at higher risk of birth defects because the 
results could easily have resulted from chance alone."

"At present, the Department of Veterans Affairs does not have the 
authority to provide medical treatment to the children of Gulf War 
veterans. In those cases where VA provides treatment, for example to 
children with spina bifida born to Vietnam veterans, it required special 
legislative authority from Congress."
________________
Re: ALS incidence:
The ALS study below found statistically significant differences, but 
great jumpin' butterballs; in this one the expected value was 33 cases, 
observed was 40 cases --  out of 700 thousand people!!! There does 
remain a distinction between statistical significance and operational 
significance!

" ...It is important to keep in mind that ALS is a very rare disease, 
and that 40 cases diagnosed among the nearly 700,000 veterans who served 
in the theater of operations in 1990-91 suggests that veterans are still 
very unlikely to get this fatal disease. ..."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

James Salsman wrote:

> With regard to the following, would it be ethical or not to establish 
> a betting pool on the risk ratio in 2010?
>
> "with medical records verification ... Dr. Kang and his colleagues 
> concluded that the risk of birth defects in children of deployed male 
> veterans was about 2.2 times that of non-deployed veterans."
>  -- Department of Veterans Affairs (2003) "Q's & A's -- 

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