Re: Ecologic Limitations

[Muckerheide <muckerheide@MEDIAONE.NET>]

 From: "John Williams" <JohnWi@law.com>



> From: Muckerheide <muckerheide@MEDIAONE.NET>

> 

> The primary factor in a 'case-control' study is knowing the dose to

> the individual. Radon case-control studies do NOT know the dose to

> the individual. 

> 

> 

> Jim,

> 

> PLEASE take the time to learn the limitations of the various

> epidemiologic designs.



You and your 'associates' use semantics instead of science. You call it a

name and say it's better. You ignore (don't understand) the first thing

about the actual data and statistics.



>I know of no credible, published

> epidemiologist that seriously considers Cohen's finding plausible.

> For example, Jay Lubin



with criminal intent to suppress data, with semantics for the gullible, not

science



> pointed out that "There is still substantial

> confusion in the radiation effects community about the inherent

> limitations of ecologic analysis. As a result, inordinate attention

> has been given to the discrepant results of Cohen, in which a

> negative estimate is observed for the regression of county mortality

> rates for lung cancer on estimated county radon levels. Since adverse

> effects for radon at low exposures are supported by analysis of miner

> data (all data and data restricted only to low cumulative exposures),

> a meta-analysis of indoor radon studies, and molecular and cellular

> studies, and since ecologic regressions are burdened by severe

> limitations, the negative results from Cohen's analysis are most

> likely due to bias and should be rejected."



Like your "arguments" Lubin is all semantics and disinformation. He and hs

cohort have produced no analysis that undermines Cohen's work after a dozen

years of a cabal of charlatans on the Fed agency payrolls to desperately

question Cohen's results. The _allusion_ to "miners at low doses" results is

fraudulent when he and his associates know even less about the actual doses

and the confounding effects to miners than the doses to individuals in the

poor residential studies! And he knows this full well.  His/their mission is

simply to produce disinformation to con the gullible.



You conveniently ignore the dozens of analyses that have the same results as

Cohen. After all, since Cohen is right, all substantial studies must produce

similar results even if they are not as statistically strong as Cohen's

data. 



> Apparently, the confusion still exists.



I doubt there's any actual confusion, except among those who are gullible

and scientifically illiterate enough to buy the disinformation Lubin and his

brethren sow to con the untutored politicians.



The only real epidemiologist to have substantially addressed Cohen's work is

Colditz. Read Cohen and Colditz 1994. Colditz abandoned the subject because

he saw it as a political food fight that could only damage his career and

funding because of the role Lubin, Samet, et al play in epi "science"

funding.  



Another senior epi that researched the data on sabatical agreed, but told us

that her colleagues that were more knowledgeable of this "controversy" had

advised her not to publish on the subject because it would be bad for her

career and could do no good. (And might not get pub'd without a strong

mission behind her since the literature is substantially controlled (e.g.,

Samet is Editor of AJE, which comes along with Fed funds that got him his

job?)



But of course you know all this.  :-(



Jim



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