Re: The Ultimate Hormesis Paper and LLNL Sunshine

["Howard Long" <hflong@pacbell.net>]

Does Gary say that at LLNL, "Science is secondary to the agenda"?



Bill Field should note that, as his Iowa radon study had "controls" who were

not closely matched ( 35% smokers vs 95% smokers for lung cancer cases), the

LLNL study came up with very different results (no ionizing radiation or

sunshine causation suggested for melanoma) when they matched controls better

than the previous study by adding education and work start date.



Should Field rematch Iowa controls?



Howard Long



.----- Original Message -----

From: "Gary Howard" <radiation@webmail.co.za>

To: <niton@mchsi.com>

Cc: <ograabe@UCDAVIS.EDU>; <radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu>

Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2003 3:16 PM

Subject: Re: RE: The Ultimate Hormesis Paper





> 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



>



************************************************************************

You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing list. To unsubscribe,

send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu  Put the text "unsubscribe

radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail, with no subject line.

You can view the Radsafe archives at http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/