RE: Comments on "Science Without Sense"?

[Free Spirit <FRANK@rover.bsd.uchicago.edu>]

>From:	SMTP%"radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu" 31-JAN-1996 08:31:23.80
>Subj:	Comments on "Science Without Sense"?
>Subject: Comments on "Science Without Sense"?

>Any comments for PUBLIC consumption? Love it? Hate it? Truth? Fiction?
>
>Steven J. Milloy

	I loved the statistical association showing that "Wearing a brassiere 
	all day and breast cancer" showed a whopping relative risk of 12,500.

	Then I caught it. As long as your control group is those who DON'T
	wear a brassire all day, they're mostly MEN! Great example of stacking
	the deck snuck into the data!!!

	Only ONE gripe. The Linear-non-threshold model was really adopted
	as a prudent UPPER LIMIT of possible harm, in an era when we didn't
	have the epidemiological studies, lab data etc we have now. The people
	who adopted it were not "some geniuses" but just trying to do "the
	best they could with what they had" at the time.

Frank R. Borger - Physicist     ___      "One third of the rats were improved
Michael Reese - U of Chicago   |___      on the experimental medication, one
Center for Radiation Therapy   | |_) _   third remained the same, and the 
net: Frank@rover.uchicago.edu    | \|_)  other one third could not be repor-
ph: 312-791-8075 fa: 791-2517       |_)  ted on, because that rat got away."
                                         - Edwin Bidwell Wilson