[ RadSafe ] Sternglass, Whyte, and infant mortality

[Steven Dapra]

July 5, 2011

	Recently someone invoked Ernest Sternglass in a reply to a posting 
by Stewart Farber.  A paper in the British Medical Journal by R. K. 
Whyte [1] figured in this.  Whyte's paper was used in an attempt to 
attribute increased infant mortality to global fallout during the 
years 1959 to 1963.

	It's worth pointing out that approximately seven weeks after Whyte's 
paper was published, Jay Gould had a letter published in the BMJ 
wherein he blamed fallout from bomb testing at the Nevada Test Site 
for increased mortality from "sexually transmitted infections" among 
men 25-44 y old.  (Gould claimed that exposure to fallout causes 
"lowered immune competence".) [2]  Another letter in the same issue 
of the BMJ [3] suggested that  "Increased registration of black 
neonates under 2500 g in New York" could explain the sudden rise in 
neonatal deaths.

	According to data presented by Whyte, neonatal deaths had been 
decreasing since 1935, and then began increasing in approximately 
1950.  This increase gradually decreased, and in or around 1980 
rejoined the decrease that Whyte shows between 1935 and 1950.  Whyte 
has graphs showing all of this.

Steven Dapra


REFERENCES

  1 Whyte, R.K (1992) 'First Day Neonatal Mortality since 1935: A 
Re-examination of the Cross Hypothesis,' British Medical Journal, 
304: 343-6; Feb. 8 1992.

  2 Gould, J. (Letter to the editor); British Medical Journal, 304: 
776; March 21, 1992.

  3 Sepkowitz, S. (Letter to the editor); British Medical Journal, 
304: 776; March 21, 1992.