[ RadSafe ] Fwd: ruling out uranium vapor with x-rays

[Steven Dapra]

April. 28

         Going to the link at the end of the message gets you this:

         James Salsman (or whatever his name is) asked: "Will Robert Cherry 
and John R. Johnson join me in asking Margaret A. K. Ryan, Director of the 
DoD Birth and Infant Health Registry, to release the trend information 
regarding the congenital malformation rates among the children of 
combat-deployed 1991 Gulf War veterans, which in 2000 were already about 
two and three times the average for males and females, respectively[2]?"

         John Johnson's answer was: "I join you in asking that the 
information be published in a peer reviewed journal. Which one do you suggest?"

         I recall this e-mail well.  (The date was March 1, 2006.)  It was 
the one wherein Salsman listed nine papers purporting to show that DU was 
dangerous.  I located eight of them and showed how Salsman had manipulated 
all eight to make them say what he wanted them to say.

         The reference [2] above is to a paper by H. Kang, et al. in Annals 
of Epidemiology.  Salsman's use of it was this:

         "[2] Kang H, Magee C, Mahan C, Lee K, Murphy F, Jackson L, 
Matanoski G. (2001) "Pregnancy outcomes among U.S. Gulf War veterans: a 
population-based survey of 30,000 veterans." Annals of Epidemiology, vol. 
11, pp. 504-11: 
http://www.annalsofepidemiology.org/article/PIIS1047279701002459/abstract 
Abstract: "Both men and women deployed to the Gulf theater reported 
significant excesses of birth defects among their liveborn infants. These 
excess rates also extended to the subset of 'moderate to severe' birth 
defects [males: OR= 1.78 (CI = 1.19-2.66); females: OR = 2.80 (CI = 
1.26-6.25)]." "  (end Salsman)

My reply (two paragraphs) follows:

"This paper has an untitled heading listing Purpose, Methods, Results, and 
the Conclusion of the study. The "Both men" sentence is in the Results, and 
is followed by this sentence: "No statistically significant differences by 
deployment status were found among men or women for stillbirths, pre-term 
deliveries or infant mortality."

"The Conclusion states: "The risk of veterans reporting birth defects among 
their children was significantly associated with veteran's military service 
in the Gulf War. This observation needs to be confirmed by a review of 
medical records to rule out possible reporting bias." (The authors describe 
their study as a "health survey.")"

         Salsman offered three challenges is his e-mail of March 1, 2006, 
and none of them were about teratology, despite the fact that he now (April 
28, 2008) claims this:  "At least one of the U.S. Army contract researchers 
on this list who failed to recognize the genotoxicity or teratology of 
uranium in their safety studies have joined the call to study its teratology."

         In March 2006 he didn't ask for a study of teratology, so no one 
could have "joined the call" to study it.  What's the matter, James?  Can't 
you keep your stories straight?  Why don't you get a job?  It should be 
obvious by now that you're never going to make any headway on RADSAFE.

Steven Dapra


At 03:52 AM 4/28/08 -0700, Ben Fore wrote:
>[Replies to Gary I. and Roger H. are included below.]

[edit]

>At least one of the U.S. Army contract
>researchers on this list who failed to recognize the
>genotoxicity or teratology of uranium in their safety
>studies have joined the call to study its teratology:
>
>   http://lists.radlab.nl/pipermail/radsafe/2006-March/002280.html

[edit]

>James Salsman, as Ben Fore (not running out of pseudonyms)