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Re: A clarification following John Jacobus's comments about my newsitem.
Howard,
I again do not understand your comments below. Could
you be more specific with your allegations if you are
going to reference my name?
Bill Field
bill-field@uiowa.edu
> John J,
> Cameron was one of the Technical Advisory Committee of NSWS and more familiar
> with it than most authors of most "peer reviewed articles" of their studies. His
> insights are most revealing about political deceipt in the reporting of the
> data.
>
> As an epidemiologist, I consider the data and inferences he presents as about as
> good as one can get short of placebo controlled studies - or ones with better
> "matched" controls than Field's 35% smokers vs 95% of lun cancer cases. Even
> placebo studies can distort application, as mingling ever-smokers (400% CV
> mortality after age 45 of never-smokers using estrogen-progestin)) for Prempro
> use or placebo, then decreeing never-smokers also should not use Prempro to
> reduce CV mortality, because of 130% incidence of CV disease for combined group.
> Prempro may reduce CV mortality in never-smokers, I believe.
>
> I believe Cameron is right, and, in the right dose, ionizing radiation, like
> sunshine, is an essential trace energy
>
> Howard Long
>
> John Jacobus wrote:
>
> > 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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