Re: A clarification following John Jacobus's comments about my news item.

["John Jacobus" <jenday1@MSN.COM>]

John,

I have read your letter to the BJR.  (Actually, I have read it the first

time you sent it to me and the previous letters that you have sent to

different newsletters.  I guess no one else has read them, or else they

would have been referenced by others beside yourself.)  Again, it is a

letter, which certainly does not carry the weight of a reviewed article.  It

carry the same impact as the "letters to the editors" we see in the local

papers.  Because I have read this letter I thought our readers should not be

lead into believe that is based on any proper peer review.  (I have yet to

see a "letter to the editor" peer reviewed.)



The fact that your BJR letter "presented information not contained in the

original article" does not mean it is true.  If they are so startling, why

did the authors not see it?  Maybe they did not see the "good news" because

there is none.  Have YOU contacted the authors with your revelations?  I

believe that Berrington, Doll and associates are reasonably intelligent men.

As epidemiologists who have collected the data, they may even give you

insights into how their drew their conclusions and what the limitations

might be.  It might even be possible that this 36% difference in non-cancer

death rates is not considered significant based on the actual numbers.  Of

course, there could be a conspiracy to hide the "good news."



I am not an epidemiologist, but I have been trying to learn a little about

the science.  As mentioned in the article, there are many sources of bias in

these studies that the epidemiologist has to consider.  It is not just the

statistics.  Again, I refer you to EPIDEMIOLOGY, November 1999, Vol. 10, No.

6, "What You Should Have Learned >about Epidemiologic Data Analysis" at

http://ipsapp002.lwwonline.com/content/getfile/64/35/1/fulltext.htm and

EPIDEMIOLOGY 2001;12:114-122, "Causation of Bias: The Episcope" at

http://ipsapp002.lwwonline.com/content/getfile/64/48/19/fulltext.htm.  I do

not claim that will give you the skills to be an epidemiologist, but I did

learned things that the improved my evaluation skills.



For example, the Berrington, et. al. paper does not present dosimetry data.

Do you think that kind of information is important?  In this country there

are radiologists who get little or any radiation exposure after their

residency programs.  Specifically, those who read mammography screening

films and CT or MRI images.  Maybe a number of these are in the 1955 to 1972

and newer groupings.  I would expect exposure values should be considered

among the radiologist.



Another example was the control for confounding factors, like smoking.

Besides lung cancer, smoking contributes to heart and cariovascular disease.

Is there a correlation between non-cancers and smoking rate between

radiologist and non-radiologist MDs?



Whether or not I think the "good news" about radiation should be mentioned

is not my concern.  I try to base my conclusions on the science and the

data.  I do not try to jump to conclusions about other researchers' work

without knowing all of the facts.  It is good science v. "data mining."



-- John

John Jacobus, MS

Certified Health Physicist

3050 Traymore Lane

Bowie, MD 20715-2024

jenday1@email.msn.com (H)



John Cameron wrote:



Dear Colleagues, I don't object to John Jacobus's comments but it

appears that he did not bother to read my letter to the BJR which was

readily available and compare its contents to the copy of the

original article which he has on hand. I suspect that most of the

readers of the news release are not as well informed as John Jacobus

is about radiation effects.  Most of the readers of the original

article probably did not study the data in Table 2 to see the good

news.



My letter to the BJR presented information not contained in the

original article on British  radiologists. It is true that all the

data I presented were in the original Berrington et al article but

they  were ignored by the authors. They stated that there was no

evidence that radiation had an effect on any disease other than

cancer. They didn't mention that British radiologists who entered the

field from 1955 to 1979 had a non-cancer death rate 36% lower (i.e.,

they lived over three years longer P<0.001) than other male MDs in

England.  That sure looked like an effect on non-cancer to me. That

news was not mentioned in the Aug. 25, 2001 Lancet last year because

The Lancet commentator just read the conclusions and did not study

Table 2 to see the health improvement. I doubt if The Lancet

commentator will write another column pointing out the good news. (I

sent The Lancet a copy of my letter to the BJR so they would be aware

of the omission of the good news.) Perhaps no one wanted to criticize

an article with Sir Richard Doll as an author.

The authors of the 100 years of British radiologists study

used the same trick as Matanoski in the narrative of the NSWS final

report where she reported that the nuclear workers had not suffered

any ill effects of radiation at "this time". She made no mention of

their improved health.  It is inappropriate to have good news in the

data and not mention it.

Maybe John doesn't think that good news about radiation

should be mentioned. Why did no other person call this good news to

the attention of BJR readers during the last year?  it is significant

that the authors of the article chose not to rebut my comments. If

the British radiologists had clear health risks from radiation it

would have made the news.

Best wishes, John Cameron

. . .



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