Re: Journals use of Wing et al "study"

["John Moulder" <jmoulder@post.its.mcw.edu>]

> Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 11:49:47 -0400 
> From: Scott Schwahn <schwahn@jlab.org> 
> To: radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu 
> Subject: Re: Journals use of Wing et al "study" 
> Message-ID: <3585429B.BEBF76D5@jlab.org> 
>  
> > But Mr. Ith made an unqualified statement 
> > that TMI resulted in a rise of leukemia. 
>  
> No, he didn't.  He wrote:  "In the U.S., leukemia rates climbed 
> among people exposed to the 
>   1979 nuclear accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania." 
>  
> Although he implied causation, he did not say that it _resulted_ in a 
> rise.  The statement might be perfectly true!

Then, by your argument, Ith could also have said:
"In the U.S., leukemia rates decreased among people exposed to the
                             ^^^^^^^^^ 
1979 nuclear accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania."; as this 
statement is also supported by a subset of the Wing et al data.

I agree with comments by others.  In the common English language, the quoted 
statement from Ith implies a causal relationship (something that is not 
supported by the Wing et al paper or anything else that I know about).

**On a related subject**
The Wing et al study was "supported by a grant from the Center for 
Environemtnal Health Studies, John Snow Institute".  Anyone know who this 
actually is.


John Moulder (jmoulder@its.mcw.edu)