Re: Re[2]: Hopkins Thesis Availability/Coverup Thread- Response

[RADPROJECT@aol.com]

In a message dated 2/4/99 11:49:45 AM Eastern Standard Time,
col_eric_daxon@medcom2.smtplink.amedd.army.mil writes:

<<  The first point, the correct avenue for the release of research 
      results is in the peer reviewed literature.  It is not uncommon for 
      this process to uncover errors or additional work that needs to be 
      done.  Once completed, the peer review process helps to guarantee the 
      validity of the work and substantially reduces the potential 
      publishing incorrect data.  This is especially critical for health 
      effects data.  It is very important that the data and conclusions 
      drawn be right.
      
      A good, well publicized example of how damaging going to the press 
      prior to peer review is "Cold Fusion."
      
      From my read of what has occurred, Johns Hopkins is following the 
      correct path.  The research really is not done until the peer review 
      is complete. >>

It is one thing to say the research is not done until the "peer review is
complete". It is still quite another for Hopkins to tell numerous parties that
the update study in Hagerstown [following up on the same cohort studied by
Sandler through 1978] has not been completed when a thesis has been submitted
by a Ph.D. candidate in June, 1997 and a degree awarded. The review of the Yeh
research results cited, which led to her receiving a Ph.D. from the Johns
Hopkins School of Public Health implies a reasonable, and quite respectable
degree of "peer review" of the health effects findings even prior to
publication in a journal. 

The Cold Fusion example raised by Col. Daxon is quite extraneous. The research
results in that famous case  were basically one experimenter's claimed results
from a limited experiment that was not easily replicated elsewhere. The
claimed results of Cold Fusion which were published before they should have
been, were certainly never subject to the review process for the observed
health effects documented in Yeh, 1997 within an institution like Johns
Hopkins School of Public Health which would preceed award of a Ph.D., as did
occur. 

The findings of the Yeh, 1997 thesis only add to the earlier findings of
adverse health effects observed in the research by Sandler, 1978 in her Ph.D.
thesis from Hopkins. Ongoing denials of harm from the use of NRI in children
by Hopkins spokespersons only adds to the validity of my primary point about
withholding information from the public related to prudent medical montoring
and notice recommendations.

The present actions by Hopkins to deny the need for medical notice and follow-
up of NRI treated patients, consistent with their own research findings from
1978 [see Sandler, 1979 -REAP webpage Bibliography], and again in 1997 [Yeh,
1997] are quite remarkable. The denial by Johns Hopkins Hospital and School of
Public Health in numerous written statements to the media, issued after the
Yeh, 1997 thesis was completed,  as to the need for medical notice and
followup of NRI treated children also goes contrary to a 1977 Consensus
Standard on "unusual head and neck irradiation" issued by the NIH/NCI [See
"Irradation Related Thyroid Cancer -Information for Physicians", 1977]. 

Let's keep cold fusion and other extraneous issues out of the debate on the
need for prudent medical notice and followup recommendations on NRI which is a
risk factor to 1,000,000 children who received contact doses from NRI in the
nasopharynx of no less than 2,000 rad [20 Gy].

Regards,

Stewart Farber, MS Public Health
Director - Radium Experiment Assessment Project [REAP]
Consulting Scientist
Public Health Sciences
19 Stuart St.
Pawtucket, RI 02860

Phone/FAX: (401) 727-4947  E-mail: radproject@usa.net
            Web address: http://www.delphi.com/carsreap



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