Re: Nukes close, infant deaths go down - Tooth Fairy Project - NY Times

[SAFarberMSPH@CS.COM]

Radsafe:
The  "scientists' involved in this study claiming positive health effects  shortly after closing down some nuclear plants, and the work of the so-called Tooth Fairy Project [it should more properly be called the No Nukes "Fairy-Tale Project"] have a long history of generating "studies" that are scientifically fradulent. It has been shown that the likes of Sternglass [and Sternglass wannnabes like Mangano following in Sternglass's footsteps]  only choose temporal and geographic data related to health statistics  which support  their hypothesis and ignore data which does not.

The technique is basically quite simple. Move a window of time [only selected after reviewing the data to prove the point you're trying to make] along some set of health statistics until you see some health statistic go up or down depending on your claim. Select locations only [cities, counties, whatever] where results support your preconceived bias. Call these locations downwind even if they're not.  This is the technique of propagandists not scientists.

Sternglass's published "studies" have been rebuked for more than 30 years by National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council in its Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation Reports [BEIR] series.  In the November 1972 BEIR Report of the Advisory Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiations critically reviewed [p. 178]  the temporal and geographic correlations of health detriment [in that case infant mortality] with levels of radioactive fallout from atom weapons testing or nuclear power plants produced by Sternglass

The 1972 BEIR Committee writes:

"The evidence assembled by Sternglass has been critically reviewed by Lindop and Rotblat [1969] and by Tomkins and Brown [1969]. It is clear that the correlations presented in suport of the hypothesis depend on arbitrary selection of data supporting the hypothesis and the ignoring of those that do not. In several regards, the data used by Sternglass appear to be in error"

I had the "pleasure" of following Sternglass as an invited speaker at a 1994 Annual Meeting of the National Association of Atomic Veterans [NAAV]  in Washington, DC. I witnessed Sternglass presenting a rambling, emotional,  but effective fire-and-brimstone talk blaming radiation exposure for everything -- from every health problem faced by "Atomic Veterans", to declining SAT scores in teenagers, to infant mortality and cancer increases around all nuclear plants, to mutating the AID virus in the Congo which led to a worldwide outbread of AIDs. Sternglass' performance was effective in scaring the pants off of this group of aging vets. I guess the Sternglass Tooth Fairy approach is also effective in gaining support from the likes of Alec Baldwin and certain politicians who are willing to throw money at the "studies" by the Tooth Fairy project. The TFP  may not be good science but it's effective propaganda since it grabs so many headlines and is rarely refuted.

So as not to be tainted by speaking on the same podium as Sternglass, I was  there at this 1994 NAAV  DC meeting as an invited  speaker to discuss the evolving issue of Nasal Radium Irradiation [NRI]. NRI used as an experimental treatment on about 7,000 WW. II era submariners and Army Air Force crewmemembers where 3 to 4 ten to twelve minute bilateral irradiations with a 50 mg Ra-226 Monel encapsulated source [0.3 mm wall thickness] inserted through each nostril to the rear of the nasopharynx,  delivered  local doses of about 2,000 R. NRI was also used on about 500,000 children for enlarged adenoids from post WW-II into the 1970s in some areas.


Stewart Farber, MS Public Health
email: SAFarberMSPH@cs.com


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In a message dated 5/1/02 6:45:01 AM Pacific Daylight Time, ncohen12@comcast.net writes:

The new statistical study, which is being published in the next issue
> of The Archives of Environmental Health, was conducted by a group of
> scientists who for many years have purported to show a link between
> mortality and illness and low levels of radiation from power plants,
> bomb tests and other sources.
>
>  But their past work has never been replicated by federal health
> researchers, and the statistical analysis they used in some earlier
> studies has been challenged by the National Cancer Institute.