Re: RE: The Ultimate Hormesis Paper

["Gary Howard" <radiation@webmail.co.za>]

Dr. Field,



Thank you for taking the time to respond in a substantive way.  But

you are wasting your time with this group, science is secondary to

agenda.



I see that your group of researchers included epidemiologists,

pathologists, statisticans, and even a nuclear physicist followed your

own advice and published your methodology in the journal you

recommended long before your study analyses.

----------------------------------------------------

Field RW, Steck DJ, Lynch CF, Brus CP, Neuberger JS, Kross BC,

Residential radon-222 exposure and lung cancer: exposure assessment

and methodology., J Expo Anal Environ Epidemiol 6: 2, 181-95, Apr-Jun,

1996.

-----------------------------

http://expertise.cos.com/cgi-bin/exp.cgi?id=323385



 If you were like the pro hormesis group or the tooth fairy group, you

too could have presented a poster or published your study findings

before you even analyzed them correctly in some second-rate journal

and really scared people.  What do you need funding for if you already

know what your outcome is going to be before a valid analysis?  The

Taiwan group could just have easily used a comparions group of people

under 30 and found that there is a huge risk from the cobalt.  This is

nuts!



 I like Jerry's lame comment that a valid study design and methods is

messaging the data, while submitting findings at a meeting without

even adjustment for age is good science.  You would think with so many

authors, maybe even one of them would understand the basic methods of

study design.  I have the answer! Add Dr. Long to the list of authors,

I bet he would make sure they at least adjusted for hours of sunshine

exposure per day.



I do appreciate the fact that you provided a logical direction for

these scientists who presented the poster.  I would be interested in

their associations.  To me this looks like work at the opposite end of

the spectrum but not even the quality of the tooth fairy project.

But, hey, Jerry, Ted, Ruth and the rest think the cobalt study is good

because it produced the right finding (radiation exposure is good) and

the tooth fairy project is bad science because it produced the wrong

finding (radiation is bad)



Don't waste your time trying to help people who have little concern

for science, only forwarding their agenda.  If I were one of these

scientist working on such a study, I would welcome the chance to work

with and take the advice of an experienced epidemiologist.



Would you be willing to give them a hand with study design issues if

they contacted you?  If these discussions on this topic have to

continue, could everyone at least move it over to Dr. Field's new

listserv for discussions like these??



Gary Howard

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