Re: more on Critics Allege Infant Mortality Rate

["Tony Harrison" <laharris@smtpgate.dphe.state.co.us>]

I'm not getting the same numbers Mangano did because we're working with different data sets.  Nevertheless, comparing '85-89 summary data to 1998 data we see:
Weld Co.  decrease 27.6%
Larimer Co. decrease 21.5%
Denver Co. decrease 18%
Boulder Co. decrease 53%
All Colorado decrease 27.2%

I bet there's no significant difference between the Weld Co. number and the Colorarado number.

Both Mangano and I are presenting "crude" rates.  Infant mortality has been shown, to everyone's satisfaction, to be highly correlated with mothers age, income, education and level of prenatal care, factors that will completely overwhelm any effect from reactor effluents.  This is why Denver's rate hasn't declined as much as Colorado's, and why Boulder's has declined more than anybody's.  Without adjustment for these and probably other factors Mangano's numbers tell us NOTHING.  A crude comparison between areas where the reactors closed, and areas where they didn't would be more informative than this mishsmash.

Tony Harrison, MSPH
Colo. Dept. of Public Health & Environment
tony.harrison@state.co.us 
(303)692-3046

>>> "D. Kosloff" <dkosloff@ncweb.com> 04/26/00 09:11PM >>>
Did they decline faster in the "downwind" counties than they did in other
counties?  That is the claim.

Don Kosloff dkosloff@ncweb.com 
2910 Main St Perry OH 44081

----- Original Message -----
From: Tony Harrison <laharris@smtpgate.dphe.state.co.us>
To: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2000 3:24 PM
Subject: Re: more on Critics Allege Infant Mortality Rate


> I just checked Colorado Vital Statistics for infant mortality rates from
1989 to 1998 for Larimer & Weld Counties, Colorado.  Mr Mangano claims these
are downwind of the (ex)Fort St. Vrain reactor.  Maybe, maybe not.  Anyway,
infant mortality rates did in fact decline in that period.  Guess what?
They did in the rest of the State too.  Hooray for modern medicine and
neonatology.
>
 I recommend checking infant mortality rates (and other endpoints if you can
find them) for "downwind" counties around reactors that did not close in the
period in question.  If the rates declined in the same manner, you can
pretty much discount reactors as having anything to do with the effect.


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