[ RadSafe ] RadSafe Digest, Vol 764, Issue 3

[Harrison, Tony]

Many thanks to Steven Dapra, Bjorn Cedervall, Bob Cherry and Roger Helbig for providing the Sternglass debunking references. 

Your work on heart attacks might have had some merit if you had introduced it as a model, based on a series of assumptions (with references to Bandashevsky's work, if relevant) that was worthy of consideration.  You didn't do that, you announced to the world (on Youtube, not in a peer reviewed journal) that Japanese children were dying of heart attacks.  It was irresponsible and narcissistic.

I'm not an academic, I work for a living, but I am second author on one paper, "Hprt Mutant Frequency, Non-Pulmonary Malignancies and Domestic Radon Exposure: Post- Mortem Analysis of an Interesting Hypothesis"; Ruttenber, A.J., Harrison, L., Barron, A et al; Environmental and Molecular Mutagenesis, 2001;37(1):7-16.

It combined data I collected I collected for my Master's thesis with some other data collected at the University of Vermont, to show that a study published in The Lancet (Possible Association between mutant frequency in peripheral lymphocytes and domestic radon concentrations; Bridges et al. 1990, Lancet, 337, 1187-1189) was nonsense, a finding that the authors agreed with in their own study around the same time.  So much for the peer review process.

The main thing I learned in graduate school was to read peer reviewed literature CRITICALLY.  Peer review by itself does not guarantee truth.

Back to lurking.


Tony Harrison, MSPH
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment
Laboratory Services Division
303-692-3046


Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2011 21:26:35 +0100
From: "Busby, Chris" <C.Busby at ulster.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] RadSafe Digest, Vol 764, Issue 2
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The heart attack point was predicated on the work of Yuri Bandashevsky who carried out work in the Belarus areas where children were contaminated by the Chernobyl fallout. This was epidemiology. I dont know how many children are suffering in Japan, just that some mothers have contacted me with description of symptoms: there was a item on Al Jazeera. But thats not epidemiology. What I did do was some calculations about Cs137 content of heart muscle and the number of heart muscle cells. I dont think you know about what Sternglass did. There was no cherry picking of data, and his work was published in peer review, as much of mine is. If you want to knock it, you should also publish in peer review. What Sterngalss did ( and Robin Whyte in the BMJ in 1990 who followed it up) was to look at a graph of infant mortality in UK and USA and notice that after the weapons fallout the infant mortality suddenly increased. I fail to see how that is cherry picking. It conforms to the causalit
 y requirements of Sir Austen Bradford Hill (Principles of Medical Statistics 1961)  who is generally recognised as being the gold standard in these affairs. Please explain.
Sincerely
Chris


-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at agni.phys.iit.edu on behalf of Harrison, Tony
Sent: Wed 05/10/2011 19:32
To: radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] RadSafe Digest, Vol 764, Issue 2
 
Sternglass got his results by cherry-picking data, as do most of the other researchers you cite.  It's impossible to tell if his work is correct or not, but the odds are against it.  Like your claims of heart attacks in Japanese children, it's not science, it's pushing an agenda through pseudo-scientific obfuscation, designed to impress the scientifically ignorant.


Tony Harrison, MSPH
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment
Laboratory Services Division
303-692-3046


Message: 7
Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2011 16:40:56 +0100
From: "Busby, Chris" <C.Busby at ulster.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Drawing the line between science and
	pseudo-science. (was Rational Thought)
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Steven Dapra takes some time to attack me. 
But talking about creationism, I believe that Steven Dapra is a Creationist. Is that right, Steven?
And dont knock Sternglass. His work is broadly correct. 
Chris


-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at agni.phys.iit.edu on behalf of Harrison, Tony
Sent: Wed 05/10/2011 15:02
To: radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu
Subject: [ RadSafe ] Drawing the line between science and pseudo-science. (was Rational Thought)
 
Interesting blog here:

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/doing-good-science/2011/10/04/drawing-the-line-between-science-and-pseudo-science/

The example given is the debate between evolution and "creation science" but the arguments apply just as much to anti- (or pro-) nuke opinions.  Take a moment to think about what sort of evidence it would take to convince you that your beliefs are false, and then see if such evidence exists.

Busby's citation of Sternglass et alia is laughable, but so are some of the pro-hormesis papers cited here over the years.  Both just show that the peer-review process is far from perfect.  Too many propagandists out there, and not enough scientists.
*