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So let me take some time here to respond to Louis though this goes to
support Jeff in his very last comment here about method, nuclear energy
notwithstanding....
Louis wrote: *"The problem is with cancer, however. Trying to find an
environmental smoking gun is virtually impossible. Cancer clusters are just
one example. Put yourself in the position of a breast cancer victim living
near a nuclear power plant. You are shit out of luck."*
That is simply untrue. One CAN establish high degrees of confidence
regarding whether or not there is a cause and effect relationship between
diseases seen in populations. And it's critical to do so if the harm done
by real environmental influences is to have any chance of being reduced or
eliminated.
We absolutely KNOW that cigarette smoking causes (or greatly increases the
risk of) lung cancer, heart disease, and many many other lethal and/or
serious medical disease. We KNOW that exposure to asbestos causes
mesothelioma. We KNOW that high exposure to lead paint chips by children
will cause lasting poisoning of their nerves and brains.
What do these known and established facts have in common? (1) The effect
observed is HUGE, to is easy to see and study. As opposed to a case of
claiming that a given environmental exposure causes a few extra cases of a
rare disease, which can be near impossible to prove: Too big a study is
needed, too long a study is needed, and it becomes near impossible to rule
out the effects of random variation. (2) Proper methods were employed. We
not only identified statistical associations... we were able to highly
control for other issues that might be causing the diseases. In the
absolutely spectacularly brilliant original study of cigarette smoking, a
population of British physicians served as the study group... a group that
was very homogeneous in all other respects OTHER THAN the division into
those who smoked cigarettes and those who did not.
The LAST thing the public... including the working class...especially
socialists, need, is hysterical and false claims of causation, acted on by
crippling critical means to bring humanity safe and clean electrical
power! We don't want medicine / science / epidemiology - ignorant and
hysterical true believers determining our energy policy. For the result of
that can and will be thousands to millions or even hundreds of millions of
deaths... from fossil fuel use, from the effects of global warming, etc.
Ignorance of medicine and science and epidemiology... fears sown based on
single case reports, speculation, emotion attached to single cases of
disease in oneself or a loved one... as in Louis' statement... are not
merely wrong or mistaken. That are malignant. They can kill. So...for
Louis' example of a women getting breast cancer in the quote above I used
from his post it is as valid in *every way possible* as: "Put yourself in
the position of a breast cancer victim living near a water tower. You are
shit out of luck." Because "anecdotal evidence = no data" as British
anti-Big Pharma activist and doctor Ben Goldacre is fond of saying. Does
she live near a highway? What does she eat? Are there a million other
factors involved in the person getting breast cancer including a history of
cancer in her family? Have there been a noticeable number of other women
and men getting breast cancer. That is how a real study is done not "my
aunt got breast cancer and she lives only 10 miles from a nuclear power
plant...".
You see...with smoking you both have the carcinogen long known to cause
cancer before it was 'proven' legally in court...there actually wasn't a
dispute about this among oncologists and cardiologists, AND we know the
delivery system...the cigarette. With so-called cancer clusters around
nuclear power plants you have zero indication of increased contamination
and certainly not of background radiation. You also have a very small
increase in cancers one is studying (unlike incidents of lung cancer from
smokers!). A few years ago two studies were released. One in Germany and
one in France. They both purported to show very small cancer clusters of
childhood leukemia for those living within 5 miles of nuclear power plants.
The authors of both studies however concluded that they could not *in
anyway* show a causal relationship between the nuclear plants and the
increase.
A French study group took the data and did something the original
researchers didn't do...they studied the incidents...all very small...but
cross referenced the result with those that lived upwind and downwind from
the plants. Odd results: the incidents of leukemia in children living
*downwind* from the plants were far less than those that lived upwind. The
opposite results would of been expected! So...if I used Louis' methodology
I might argue that living down wind from a nuclear power plant is better
than living upwind from one where no radiation could ever contaminate the
area. But I know better and I know the problems with studies and how to
draw conclusions with only *statistical* input into these studies (as both
were). Not garnered by either team (which they admitted too) were life
histories of the children. Their family history of cancers. How *long* they
lived in the radius of the power plants and so on. That would revealed a
far better sampling of children.
Generally speaking the left is spooked by radiation phobia. It follows the
general population on this. It is reinforced by the "popular" articles like
the one whose link started this discussion and compounded by "My aunt..."
stories and superstitions....hysterical and false claims of
causation...that we should know better as to believe or take at face value
as Marxists.
David Walters
============================
The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
the one that heralds new discoveries, is not
'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'
——Isaac Asimov
============================
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