North Coast Online

Et Tu Roswell?

TechCentralStation has a post on declining rigor in scientific publications.  I was sorry to see Roswell Park included.

Apparently, we can no longer assume that peer review journals are free of "junk science." The peer-reviewed journal Cancer, a publication of the American Cancer Society (ACS), just published a special online supplement that clearly meets the definition of "junk"in every way.

 

This journal, which boasts a long and distinguished list of editorial advisors, featured an article by Dr. Julia Brody, the executive director of the Silent Spring Institute and researchers from the Roswell Park Cancer Institute. The journal supplement section was funded by the foundation Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Brody is the principal investigator of the Cape Cod Breast Cancer and Environment Study -- a study of exposures to "mammary carcinogens" from air and water pollutants, pesticides, detergents, plastics, and cosmetics.

 

Why is this study "junk"? Let me count the ways:

 

First, the conclusions drawn by the authors, namely that environmental pollutants cause breast cancer, are not based on human studies but instead on high-dose animal studies. The authors identify a series of synthetic chemicals that cause breast tumors in rodents and then leap to the assumption that these chemicals also cause breast cancer in women.

 

There is now a nearly-universal rejection by scientists of the use of laboratory rodent data to predict human cancer risks. Thus, it is astounding that this lengthy paper is predicated on the assumption that rodents are just "little women." Indeed, in a companion article in the same Cancer supplement -- this one written exclusively by staff members of the Silent Spring Institute -- the authors recklessly elevate the role of rodent tests by asserting that "identifying chemical carcinogens in animal studies is currently the primary means of anticipating cancer effects in humans." If indeed that statement were true, we would be classifying a whole host of natural foods as "cancer risks" because they naturally contain chemicals that cause cancer in rodents -- including mushrooms (hydrazines), table pepper (safrole), and bread (ethyl carbamate)

 

Second, the authors brazenly conclude that, while they cannot state with confidence how many breast cancer cases annually are due to exposure to trace levels of "chemicals" (including pesticides, ingredients in cosmetics and other "environmental pollutants"), they feel the evidence (what evidence?) is strong enough to warrant "strategies" to reduce exposures in an effort to reduce breast cancer risk.

 

Further, it is clear from the affiliation of the senior author that this "study" was in no way neutrally conducted. In its own description, the Silent Spring Institute claims to be "a non-profit scientific research organization dedicated to identifying the links between the environment and women's health, especially breast cancer." The study was commissioned by the Susan G. Komen foundation's "environmental factors and breast cancer" project. Thus from the get-go the assumption is that breast cancer is causally linked to "environmental" factors -- specifically chemicals in the environment. This article is not science -- it is environmental advocacy.

Read the whole thing.

I'd Hoped Ketchup Would Protect Me

Just damn.

No magic tomato? Study breaks link between lycopene and prostate cancer prevention

I suppose this means I'll still have to undergo the dreaded "test."

Careful What You Wish For

When calculating all the savings that will accrue to you from converting to fluorescent bulbs, don't forget to add in the clean-up costs.

Consider the procedure offered by the Maine DEP’s Web page entitled, “What if I accidentally break a fluorescent bulb in my home?”

Don’t vacuum bulb debris because a standard vacuum will spread mercury-containing dust throughout the area and contaminate the vacuum. Ventilate the area and reduce the temperature. Wear protective equipment like goggles, coveralls and a dust mask.

Collect the waste material into an airtight container. Pat the area with the sticky side of tape. Wipe with a damp cloth. Finally, check with local authorities to see where hazardous waste may be properly disposed.

The only step the Maine DEP left off was the final one: Hope that you did a good enough cleanup so that you, your family and pets aren’t poisoned by any mercury inadvertently dispersed or missed.

This, of course, assumes that people are even aware that breaking CFLs entails special cleanup procedures.

The potentially hazardous CFL is being pushed by companies such as Wal-Mart, which wants to sell 100 million CFLs at five times the cost of incandescent bulbs during 2007, and, surprisingly, environmentalists.

It’s quite odd that environmentalists have embraced the CFL, which cannot now and will not in the foreseeable future be made without mercury. Given that there are about 4 billion lightbulb sockets in American households, we’re looking at the possibility of creating billions of hazardous waste sites such as the Bridges’ bedroom.

Usually, environmentalists want hazardous materials out of, not in, our homes.

The article mentions one woman who was given an estimate of $2,000 to safely contain the mercury and dispose of it after she dropped a CFL bulb on the floor of her daughter's bedroom.

[UPDATE:] Debunked by the great one.  Actually, I think that CFL's are an increasingly good alternative to incandescents.  I am skeptical of their claimed economic and environmental transformative powers, however.  If they really save us money, we'll switch to them without the government's forcing them down our sockets.

Lies, Damned Lies And Statistics

I just love it when I come across ridiculous statistics -- you know, the ones designed to prove someone's point but which are statistically indefensible and meaningless to begin with.

Replacing incandescent bulbs with the more efficient compact fluorescent lights would produce a "huge energy savings" and reduce pollution generated by power plants, [California assemblyman] Levine said.

"It's the equivalent of taking 400,000 cars off the road," he added. [emphasis mine]

Is that an actual statistic or just one of those made-up numbers that get repeated often enough that they are assumed to be accurate.  Well, I can play his game.  Replacing incandescent light bulbs will result in over 11,000 Americans losing their jobs and 91.8% of women will think they look horrible when they look in the mirror.

Does he really want to be responsible for that? 

Another Survey From The Aptly Named Pew Center

Well, next NPR tin-cup time we're bound to hear this one over and over.

Pew judged the levels of knowledgeability (correct answers) among those surveyed and found that those who scored the highest were regular watchers of Comedy Central's The Daily Show and Colbert Report. They tied with regular readers of major newspapers in the top spot -- with 54% of them getting 2 out of 3 questions correct. Watchers of the Lehrer News Hour on PBS followed just behind.

Virtually bringing up the rear were regular watchers of Fox News. Only 1 in 3 could answer 2 out of 3 questions correctly. Fox topped only network morning show viewers.

Yeah, I bet they're having a good laugh around the ol' publicly-subsidised water cooler tonight. But before you start parroting it, you'd do yourself well to visit the Pew Center's website and look at the poll results first-hand for the info this article left out.   For example, Rush Limbaugh listeners were rated just one percentage point behind NPR's audience, but well ahead of people who get their news from newsmagazines, TV news websites, the daily newspaper or CNN.

Show	Knowledge High	Knowledge Moderate	Knowledge Low
Jim Lehrer	53%	19%	28%
Bill O'Reilly	51%	32%	17%
NPR	51%	27%	22%
Rush Limbaugh	50%	29%	21%
CNN	41%	30%	29%
Local TV News	35%	33%	32%
Fox News	35%	30%	35%
Network Morning Shows	34%	36%	30%

Those Fox News idiots, as it turns out, are equally as informed (or misinformed) as listeners of local TV news but here's the confusing part.  The survey rates O'Reilly listeners a bit higher than NPR's audience and only just behind Jim Lehrer's.  Isn't that odd? And here all this time I'd thought that O'Reilly was on Fox News. 

At any rate, when Goldy starts blathering on about how superior her contributors are to the drooling morons who watch Fox, remind her of O'Reilly and determine your contribution based on accuracy in reporting accordingly.  Full disclosure: readers of this blog were not rated but probably wouldn't participate in such a silly exercise anyway.   

Let's Pass Another Law To Allow It

Trans fat hysteria has led to an inadvertent ban on butter. Oh, those unintended consequences.

Keep It Simple, Stupid

I continue to hope that New York State will make the wise decision and replace its lever-voting machines with a simple paper ballot.  Those would be gathered up at the end of the voting day and whisked to one of many central vote-counting stations where electronic readers would tally the vote swiftly and surely.

But an innocuous paragraph in the New York Times today has me worried.  In an article about a lab in Colorado that tests election equipment comes this nugget.

The company, Ciber Inc. of Greenwood Village, Colo., has also come under fire from analysts hired by New York State over its plans to test new voting machines for the state. New York could eventually spend $200 million to replace its aging lever devices.

Look, sometimes simple and analog is better than sophisticated and electronic. 

Let's remember that the impetus behind "reforming" voting procedures in the United States stems from alleged irregularities in Florida in 2000.  In that election, voters were supposedly confused by the complexity of a punch-card voting system, which is probably the second least complex balloting method known to man.

Yet, instead of spending some money to educate potential voters how to cast a valid ballot or finding ways to make the ballot clearer we're going in just the opposite direction.  And the rush to unproven and often unreliable computer-based voting machines (at huge expense) threatens to create an even larger crisis of confidence than the phony one that started it.

This is not solving the problem.

Global Warming Christmas?

Leave it to the New York Times to come up with that one.

Balmy temperatures on the East Coast, with average highs this holiday season 15 degrees warmer than last year, have been disastrous for sales of all kinds of cold-weather clothing, from cashmere caps to wool scarves.

What seemed like a meteorological aberration — the coatless, hatless, gloveless morning commute in Washington, New York and Boston — is starting to feel like the new normal, encouraging consumers to splurge on a flat-screen television instead of a peacoat.

The glut of winter wear has sent a chill through the executive suites of major retailers, who count on big profits from coats in the crucial holiday shopping season. They are even starting to grumble about the first “global warming Christmas.

Look, this isn't the first mild Christmas season ever.  I recall jogging on the beach in Silver Creek on Christmas night in 1984 -- the temperature was in the mid-60's.  And as recently as 1997 Buffalo had seen almost no snow up through New Year's Eve.  You may recall that the following seven days saw seven feet of snowfall.

And someone (almost undoubtedly someone in the media) is bound to misinterpret this article as claiming that climate change has ruined the Christmas retail season and by extension will have ominous repercussions for the American economy.  Even the Times points out, however, that instead of buying coats shoppers are opting instead for TV's and probably IPOD's.  It may be disastrous for clothing retailers, but I'm sure it's a boon to those who also sell electronics.