Re: [Marxism] [pen-l] Fwd: Is a Controversial Nuclear Plant to Blame for Soaring Thyroid Cancer Rates in New York? | Alternet,

[DW via Marxism]

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On Tue, Dec 12, 2017 at 2:59 AM, Nick Fredman 
wrote:

>
> Well I was just commenting on one aspect of the evidence that been used,
> but I'll be more general. One big problem with David’s claim that his
> figures on deaths attributable to forms of power shows that nuclear power
> entails least risk to human health is that they're a static picture of the
> current situation of nukes being a small proportion of global power usage
> and don't tell us much about the real issue, the related technical and
> political aspects of de-carbonising the current economy.
>
> Indeed...this was a health centered discussion in response to a haphazard
posting by Louis P. Actually, Nick, it's very important. It's not 'static'
at all: it is showing the deaths per unit of energy for most types of
energy. It is used as risk assessment and it totally dynamic as these
numbers can and do change as various forms of energy start predominating
over other forms. But those numbers are only 'static' because it shows
which are safe and which are not. And it shows that nuclear is safer...the
proportions don't change that much. Nuclear is a "small proportion" of
global power usage...if you mean electricity? It's around 16%...not so
small.


> If he seriously wants leftists and environmentalists in a country like
> Australia, with no nuclear power and a massive over-reliance on fossil
> fuels, to somehow be convinced that 99% of them are wrong and that nukes
> should be campaigned for, to the extent that they are successful in the
> massive task of convincing the public that this is a good idea and the huge
> investment already in solar, hydro and wind a less good idea, then there
> would be a massive use in *fossil-fuel* derived energy to build the things,
> and the resultant deaths and disease from that extra use of energy, and
> while they're being built the 5-10+ years of the current massive use of
> fossil fuels continuing, optimistically, before they helped in any way.
> That's all in the unlikely event that they'd be a plausible political force
> that would both build nuclear power and wind down fossil fuels, of which
> there is now virtually zero.
>
> On the other hand the alliance of activists, scientists and engineers
> Beyond Zero Emissions http://bze.org.au/ have a feasible plan for a rapid
> transition to renewables with ideas that have wide support among the left,
> the Greens, Labor left, unions and the public, and with technology and
> infrastructure that's being rolled out now. That this is political feasible
> on a big scale with a stronger left and environmental movement is shown by
> the recent victory by a broad front of campaigners including Socialist
> Alliance members in pressuring the South Australian Labor government to
> replace a coal fired plant with a big solar thermal plant, which will be
> online in 3 years.
>
> Indeed...never said it was going to be easy :).   The left most places has
long ago given up it's science based understanding of political economy for
knee-jerk...and not serious, concern about climate change. No solar thermal
plant has or ever will replace the same equivalent of coal. Germany has
shown the failure of renewables to replace  fossil fuel, where that country
just put on line the largest coal plant in Europe and built scads of
natural gas turbines. If you read the articles in Dissent I posted (a
debate actually) Germany has been an unmitigated failure and they will
never reach their goals. As opposed to nuclear France where close to 80% of
their grid is nuclear powered and they did away with fossil fuel for
generation in 15 years. Don't say it can't be done, Nick. It has. Wanna
guess which big country in Europe has the lowest carbon footprint and why?

David Walters

>
>
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Re: [Marxism] [pen-l] Fwd: Is a Controversial Nuclear Plant to Blame for Soaring Thyroid Cancer Rates in New York? | Alternet,

[Nick Fredman via Marxism]

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On Mon, 11 Dec 2017 at 11:31 am, DW via Marxism 
wrote:

> The bottom line is *not* whether a given means of making power is 100%
> without risks (implicit in all points made here by Louis, Nick, etc).  It's
> "Which means of making power that is otherwise desirable (economical,
> sustainable, low in CO2 production per unit electric power put out, low in
> impact on the environment... as is all obviously the case with nuclear
> power) entails *least* risk of harm to human health?"
>

Well I was just commenting on one aspect of the evidence that been used,
but I'll be more general. One big problem with David’s claim that his
figures on deaths attributable to forms of power shows that nuclear power
entails least risk to human health is that they're a static picture of the
current situation of nukes being a small proportion of global power usage
and don't tell us much about the real issue, the related technical and
political aspects of de-carbonising the current economy.

If he seriously wants leftists and environmentalists in a country like
Australia, with no nuclear power and a massive over-reliance on fossil
fuels, to somehow be convinced that 99% of them are wrong and that nukes
should be campaigned for, to the extent that they are successful in the
massive task of convincing the public that this is a good idea and the huge
investment already in solar, hydro and wind a less good idea, then there
would be a massive use in *fossil-fuel* derived energy to build the things,
and the resultant deaths and disease from that extra use of energy, and
while they're being built the 5-10+ years of the current massive use of
fossil fuels continuing, optimistically, before they helped in any way.
That's all in the unlikely event that they'd be a plausible political force
that would both build nuclear power and wind down fossil fuels, of which
there is now virtually zero.

On the other hand the alliance of activists, scientists and engineers
Beyond Zero Emissions http://bze.org.au/ have a feasible plan for a rapid
transition to renewables with ideas that have wide support among the left,
the Greens, Labor left, unions and the public, and with technology and
infrastructure that's being rolled out now. That this is political feasible
on a big scale with a stronger left and environmental movement is shown by
the recent victory by a broad front of campaigners including Socialist
Alliance members in pressuring the South Australian Labor government to
replace a coal fired plant with a big solar thermal plant, which will be
online in 3 years.

So no thanks David.



> In other words in ever study presented, gross increases "statistically
> significant" in Nick's phraseology, is not really that significant.
>

I'll comment on this as the technical use of "significant" often leads to
confusion and this stuff useful to understand for anyone wanting to be an
informed consumer of scientific studies. David is right that "statistical
significance" doesn't necessarily mean practical significance, but quite
wrong that it's my phraseology. It's a standard statistical term that
confusingly isn't *at all* a measure of how big an effect is, but is about
the probability that a result from a sample study, generally a difference
between two things, can be inferred to be real difference in the
population, rather than just being random sampling variation. "Significant"
refers to passing a probability threshold test, generally 95%.

The term appeared in my post because of the abstracts I quoted. I tend not
to use it at all unless I really have to, because it *is* confusing, and
because I'm a partisan of "the new statistics" pioneered in particular by
Australian psychologist Geoff Cumming https://thenewstatistics.com/itns/.
Geoff and his school are very critical of the standard, rather formal
logic, practice of presenting a yes/no statistical significance based on a
threshold. They say look more at "effect sizes", measures of the likely
extent of differences, and for uncertainty/probability, have a more
dialectical, continuous, not yes/no view, particularly by looking at the
"confidence interval" of a likely range of result values, often presented
in charts in the form of "error bars" that you've probably seen some kind
of. Studies in various fields report effect sizes and confidence intervals
more now, party as a result of these guys' agitation. They're also strong
supporters of "open science" and breaking down the pay walls of research.
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Re: [Marxism] [pen-l] Fwd: Is a Controversial Nuclear Plant to Blame for Soaring Thyroid Cancer Rates in New York? | Alternet,

[DW via Marxism]

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I think Nick's response and his overview of the two studies shows a myopic
focus on this issue of small increases in cancer morbidity

And those turning to it as a case against nuclear power provide a good
illustration of most fundamental error made by radiation-phobic and
anti-nuclear activists:

The bottom line is *not* whether a given means of making power is 100%
without risks (implicit in all points made here by Louis, Nick, etc).  It's
"Which means of making power that is otherwise desirable (economical,
sustainable, low in CO2 production per unit electric power put out, low in
impact on the environment... as is all obviously the case with nuclear
power) entails *least* risk of harm to human health?"

This means, looking at the bottom line.  *Not* a particular minuscule
increase in (highly treatable, by the way) thyroid cancer or even a
minuscule increase in leukemia (even if those those reports are valid), but
instead the OVERALL health impact of one means of making power compare to
another.

The relevant question to ask is:

After making an exawatt-hour of electricity, how many human lives are taken?

Current calculations suggest:

power sourcedeaths per exawatt-hour
===
coal   5000
oil 1000
nat gas   500
nuclear  1
(World Health Organization: and most epidemiological studies are close to
these same numbers).

Now... which means of making power makes sense from a point of view of
human health?


To be sure, Nick could immediately pipe up that *mortality* is not the only
form of medical harm from an environmental risk.  There is also
*morbidity*... harm to health short of death.

However:  Fact is the numbers are similar there.


This same critical overview concept that intelligent and competent societal
planners understand (and anti-nuclear activists either cannot comprehend or
deliberately ignore) is true of the tired debate regarding LNT (Linear
Non-Threshold Thesis) hypothesis.  *It makes no difference* whether harm
from radiation exposure goes to zero at some point as dose goes down OR
whether it always exists and just continues to get smaller as the dose
decreases, IF in the latter case there is a point where harm from radiation
drops below background noise and/or drops massively below harm from any of
the alternatives involved in doing things (such as making electric power,
or diagnosing a disease) in a manner that does not entail radiation
exposure.

In other words in ever study presented, gross increases "statistically
significant" in Nick's phraseology, is not really that significant. We are
talking very small numbers. Gross incidents of cancer in the U.S. are
higher than 45%! Nuclear if all the studies that show increases in
breast/thyroid/leukemia contributes to around .0001% of that. We are trying
to determine as I noted in the beginning: "Which means of making power that
is otherwise desirable (economical, sustainable, low in CO2 production per
unit electric power put out, low in impact on the environment...entails
*least* risk of harm to human health?"*

David
*At the plant looked at in Germany cited in Nick's study (and which I also
noted early on) the authors noted that the risks are minuscule to the
health of the residents. Secondly, they failed to note that the plant was
build on an old chemical plant.
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Re: [Marxism] [pen-l] Fwd: Is a Controversial Nuclear Plant to Blame for Soaring Thyroid Cancer Rates in New York? | Alternet

[Nick Fredman via Marxism]

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On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 8:24 AM, DW via Marxism 
wrote:

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>
...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.
>

Speaking as a quantitative researcher who's worked on a couple of
epidemiological projects, and whose work now is in the area of social
science most concerned with causation, social program evaluation, I'd say
that David's isn't quite correct on the relevant evidentiary and
statistical issues. Regarding tobacco and smoking, the tobacco
corporations, in their long struggle to discredit the evidence, were
formally correct in pointing to the limitations of observational results
such as from the classic British Doctors Study that David is alluding to.
When looking at the causal relationships between an exposure and an
outcome, an observational study is limited crucially because unlike a
randomised trial of a treatment, the "assignment" to the exposure isn't
random but caused by various things, *which might also affect the outcome*.
Taking out possibly confounding social factors by looking at just one
occupation might help (at the expense of losing any evidence of interaction
between social factors and exposure), but doesn't really help with this
crucial issue. So the tobacco corporations were able to be formally correct
is arguing that, who knows, more stressed out doctors might be more likely
to smoke because they take some relief with a soothing cigarette, but
unfortunately for them stress causes lung cancer.

The reason we can be pretty sure that this is spurious because David's
first point is the most relevant: the massive effect size in repeated
studies (of all sorts of social backgrounds), and the big proportions of
smokers who get lung cancer. Formally what you really want to do, as ethics
committees might frown on randomly assigning people to smoke or work with
asbestos, is a "quasi-experiment", what we do in quantitative evaluation
when random assignment to a program is impractical or unethical or invalid
(pretty much all the time for social programs despite a current mania in
this area for RCTs, IMO, but that's another issue): you separately model
"assignment to exposure" if you do happen to have data that affects such
assignment, e.g. stress levels of doctors before any of them started
smoking, and use some weighting or matching techniques to synthesise
randomisation to make the two exposure groups actually equivalent apart
from exposure. I don't know if anyone's done that with regard to smoking
but the massive, repeatedly-found associations make it probably a bit
redundant (as opposed to say the tricky issue of whether the slightly
higher incidence of serious mental health issues among cannabis smokers,
about 2% c.f. 1% for the general population, means the weed is causing the
problems of the problems are causing some self-medication).

Now this all seems relevant here because there does seem to some clear and
repeatedly found, if small, associations between cancers and living near a
nuclear plant, but at least in the case of thyroid cancer, no credible
confounding factor.

David does also allude to the fact that general observational studies are
limited 

Re: [Marxism] [pen-l] Fwd: Is a Controversial Nuclear Plant to Blame for Soaring Thyroid Cancer Rates in New York? | Alternet

[Jeff via Marxism]

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In the first place, David badly misquoted me (carelessly, not 
intentionally I assume):


On 2017-12-07 15:34, DW via Marxism wrote:


Jeff is
wrong when he suggest people might consider moving from areas of high
levels of background radiation that occur naturally in many areas.


No, I said there are places that I would avoid spending much time at. 
One of Brazil's nicest beaches, Guarapari, has background radiation 
levels reaching over 100x of the levels where most people live. Spending 
a day in the sun there can be like getting a dozen chest x-rays. I would 
choose a different beach.


But here is the crux of the issue:


This goes to Jeff's fear of
radiation as well: there is no evidence that small dosages of radiation
that exist at background levels have a thing to do with cancer.


This is exactly the problem: we don't firmly know that does "have a 
thing to do with cancer" but we also don't know that it DOESN'T. The 
cause of most cancers is unknown so currently we can't even rule out 
background radiation as the leading cause of cancer.


The reason I talked about the history of awareness of radiation dangers 
is that at every point where people just didn't know, it later did 
become known that they had earlier been too complacent and that the 
dangers were greater than previously imagined. That might not happen 
again, but if you don't know whether something is dangerous, but have 
reason to believe it could be (such as knowing for sure that it is 
dangerous at a much higher level), then the prudent course of action is 
always to regard it as dangerous until proven safe.


I would recommend the Nature article Louis pointed to, which seems to 
summarize the current (but poor) knowledge concerning risks from 
low-level radiation exposure, and claims to contradict the hypothesis 
that below a certain level radiation is not a cause of cancer. This is 
the big question that is so very difficult to measure for the reasons we 
have been discussing. It's difficult to detect statistically one 
additional cancer case among 1 people. But that small increase could 
mean 100 deaths in one large city alone. If there were 100 deaths due to 
a building collapse, then people would condemn those responsible and ask 
why such a preventable accident were allowed to occur. One could ask the 
same question concerning artificial sources of radiation or 
radioisotopes in the environment.


In addition to the Nature article, there is a lot of reference 
information on low-level radiation exposure at the website of the US 
Environmental Protection Agency (content which I guess Trump hasn't 
gotten around to axing since he was too busy removing their content on 
global warming!):


https://www.epa.gov/radiation/radiation-sources-and-doses

- Jeff

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Re: [Marxism] [pen-l] Fwd: Is a Controversial Nuclear Plant to Blame for Soaring Thyroid Cancer Rates in New York? | Alternet

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 12/7/17 9:34 AM, DW via Marxism wrote:

There is simply no evidence whatsoever that people who live in higher area
of background radiation are at all at risk for higher rates of cancer.


There were also reports that the people who lived in houses built near 
Love Canal had lower incidence of cancer than people living elsewhere. 
The problem is that cancer tends to develop later in life, long after 
exposure to environmental factors first occurred. This is something I 
wrote about here:


https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/08/29/cancer-politics-and-capitalism/

Several weeks before I watched “Second Opinion”, I made a point of 
reading George Johnson’s recently published “The Cancer Chronicles” in 
order to get up to speed on current thinking about the disease. As I 
mentioned above, when I worked at MSKCC, I read Samuel Epstein’s “The 
Politics of Cancer”, a book that ties what was perceived at the time as 
a cancer epidemic to environmental toxins, especially pesticides. It was 
very much in the spirit of Barry Commoner’s “The Closing Circle” and 
amenable to my Marxist opposition to corporate indifference to our 
health and safety.


About ten years after reading “The Politics of Cancer”, I read Robert 
Proctor’s “The Cancer Wars” that backtracked from Epstein’s findings. 
Although very much a man of the left, Proctor warned his readers that 
finding a direct correlation between pollutants and cancer is very 
difficult.


With Proctor’s warnings in the back of my mind, I was not completely 
surprised by Johnson’s treatment of the environmental question. In 
chapter seven, titled “Where Cancer Really Comes From”, Johnson amasses 
some statistics of the sort that pro-industry hacks might repeat. For 
example, epidemiology studies conclude that cancer cases in the 
immediate vicinity of Love Canal were no greater than that in the rest 
of New York State even though there was a spike in birth defects.


In referring to cancer clusters, such as the supposed breast cancer 
epidemic in Long Island, Johnson concludes that they are “statistical 
illusions”. It is not so much that Johnson denies that there is a 
connection between cancer and the environment; it is that they are 
exceedingly difficult to prove.


Since I have like most people on the left become convinced that there is 
a connection between carcinogens in the water, soil and air and the 
incidence of cancer, I emailed Johnson with my concerns and referred him 
to a study of cancer clusters near heavily polluted rivers in China. 
Showing a grace uncommon to most well-established journalists, Johnson 
took the trouble to write back:


	Thanks very much for your email. I appreciate the kind words about my 
book. I hadn’t seen that particular study and will make a point of 
reading it. Of course many industrial chemicals are carcinogenic, and it 
seems very possible that concentrations have been high and chronic 
enough in China’s water to expose the general population to levels known 
to cause cancer in the workplace. Nailing that down is very tricky 
though, especially in developing countries where epidemiological studies 
are just getting underway. Most of the research in China seems to 
concentrate on air pollution and lung cancer. Since the focus of my book 
was on cancer in the developed world, I may write a column in the future 
comparing the situation with China, India, etc.


Making the case about pollution—a negative indicator—is difficult but 
just as much so with positive indicators. Nutritionists are always 
urging us to eat fruits and vegetables, especially those with 
anti-oxidant properties such as blueberries and cabbage but there has 
never been a rigorous study of diet and cancer. This has a lot to do 
with the near impossibility of conducting a demographically 
representative study of the effects of eating “good” food and bad. Since 
cancer can take many decades to show up, tracking its roots and 
development is a near impossible task.

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Re: [Marxism] [pen-l] Fwd: Is a Controversial Nuclear Plant to Blame for Soaring Thyroid Cancer Rates in New York? | Alternet

[DW via Marxism]

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Louis wrote "
You simply don't understand a thing I wrote. Smoking does damage to your
lungs. Asbestos is a carcinogenic just as much as the interiors of chimneys
that caused testicular cancer in the boys who swept them in Charles
Dickens's day. "

"But when it comes to nuclear reactors or the crap that Monsanto sells,
there is much more difficulty in establishing an open-and-shut case as
there is with tobacco. And even with the case of tobacco, it took decades
to finally nail the tobacco companies."

Louis, I would was responding to YOUR comments about your claim regarding
the difficulties "proving" dangers of carcinogens. I'm saying I believe you
are confusing "proof" with "liability" and they are completely different.
What is known the the medical community based on evidence, that is, it's
"proved" is entirely different when it comes to "nailing tobacco
companies", the legal framework for "proof". I'm only and have really only
dealt with the medical side. There was NEVER any doubt as to the effects of
tobacco. It took 40 years to prove it in court, but that is a different
issue.

Your false amalgam of  nuclear reactors with Monsanto still shows you don't
understand either about radiation or "proof". This goes to Jeff's fear of
radiation as well: there is no evidence that small dosages of radiation
that exist at background levels have a thing to do with cancer. Jeff is
wrong when he suggest people might consider moving from areas of high
levels of background radiation that occur naturally in many areas. Why?
There is simply no evidence whatsoever that people who live in higher area
of background radiation are at all at risk for higher rates of cancer. And
this is what I'm talking about. Jeff's view, to say nothing of Louis', is
like 30 years out of date. So much has been done in terms of the
statistical and geographic locations of "high" radiation areas as compared
to low areas as to show that cancer rates are hardly impacted by such
things as higher than average background radiation levels (for those that
are curious...we are *bathed* in radiation very minute of our lives. Oceans
in particular have higher than average radiation levels do to the large
amounts of uranium dissolved in seawater: 1 ton per km3).

Louis...radiation studies...unlike those around Monsanto and other Big Ag
polluters and insecticide/herbicide/pesticide producers...are well known
and fully vetted. We *know* that nuclear power plants do not cause rates of
increased cancer. Certainly not beyond what is occurring already due to
capitalist enterprises like coal, gas and industrial production in general.
Fully 45% of US residents will contract cancer in their lifetimes. Even if
overall mortality goes down from cancer it an alarming number. If you
totaled up the number of produced child hood leukemia and breast cancer due
to the claims of living near a nuclear power plant, it would amount to
about .0001% of all cancer cases. Yet coal kills, very years, 16,000
Americans...minimum...and probably 20x that number who contract respiratory
diseases. Yet nuclear is the surest way to get rid of coal plants, just as
they replaced oil generation power plants in the 1970s here in the U.S. and
in France. the radiation phobia of the left as I noted in my previous
message is doing real damage considering what does face us in terms of our
tasks in phasing out fossil fuel (especially the greenwashed natural gas
industry). It means shuttering the worlds *largest* source of low carbon
energy in favor of fossil fuels. And this is why the politics of energy are
so important and why the left, at least in developed countries, are
ass-backward on their priorities.
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Re: [Marxism] [pen-l] Fwd: Is a Controversial Nuclear Plant to Blame for Soaring Thyroid Cancer Rates in New York? | Alternet

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 12/6/17 4:24 PM, DW via Marxism wrote:

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.


You simply don't understand a thing I wrote. Smoking does damage to your 
lungs. Asbestos is a carcinogenic just as much as the interiors of 
chimneys that caused testicular cancer in the boys who swept them in 
Charles Dickens's day.


But when it comes to nuclear reactors or the crap that Monsanto sells, 
there is much more difficulty in establishing an open-and-shut case as 
there is with tobacco. And even with the case of tobacco, it took 
decades to finally nail the tobacco companies.

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Re: [Marxism] [pen-l] Fwd: Is a Controversial Nuclear Plant to Blame for Soaring Thyroid Cancer Rates in New York? | Alternet

[DW via Marxism]

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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 

Re: [Marxism] [pen-l] Fwd: Is a Controversial Nuclear Plant to Blame for Soaring Thyroid Cancer Rates in New York? | Alternet

[Jeff via Marxism]

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On 2017-12-06 18:28, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote:


The problem is with cancer, however. Trying to find an environmental
smoking gun is virtually impossible. Cancer clusters are just one
example.


Well the sad thing is that I probably agree totally with Louis in 
regards to the policy issues regarding nuclear power (more than I would 
with David) and other environmental dangers expressed in the remainder 
of his post, below. But that has nothing to do with my point: knowledge 
gained empirically (and confidence in that knowledge) can be obtained 
using the scientific method, not through simply compiling what Louis 
admits is "circumstantial evidence," and what you learn (or don't learn) 
is a separate matter from what action you propose in relation to that 
knowledge (or lack thereof). Although our practical concerns are the 
same, I'm afraid Louis doesn't appreciate the use of statistical 
inference in establishing scientific conclusions, which is the only way 
he could say that doing so is "virtually impossible."


Statistics is an exact science (well, actually mathematics) concerning 
inexact phenomena (which is almost everything in reality). And by 
"statistics" I don't mean numbers that are measured or thrown around 
(aka "raw statistics") but the science whereby empirical measurements of 
random phenomena can lead to (or fail to lead to!) conclusions 
concerning the underlying system. Yes, there are many ways that 
statistics, even without making any errors in the math, can be 
intentionally misused or innocently misapplied, resulting in invalid 
conclusions. That goes for anything. But statistics has a bad 
reputation, because rather than the science of statistical inference, a 
propagandist will throw out numbers to non-statisticians and expect them 
to come to conclusions in their minds matching the intentions of the 
propagandist. But that is not how statistics is used in scientific 
research.


People might imagine that scientists make measurements and then perform 
calculations based on those numbers. But that's only half the story. 
Often you'll spend as much or more time not on those numbers but on 
analyzing the errors in your measurements and the resulting strength of 
your conclusions. For instance, I may measure a 2 degree increase in 
temperature when I add X to a solution of Y. That might mean that the 
reaction between X and Y generates that much heat. But before I could 
say that, and certainly before I could publish it, I would have to ask 
how precise my thermometers are. It could be that my thermometers are so 
crumby that either of their readings has an expected (rms) error of 1 
degree. Then I could hardly reach any such conclusion; even if there had 
been no heat generated in the reaction there is an 8% a priori 
probability of measuring a temperature increase as large as 2 degrees 
just due to the measurement error of my thermometers. On the other hand, 
even if those were the best thermometers I could obtain, I could repeat 
the experiment 50 times (making 100 measurements using the crumby 
thermometers). If the average measured temperature increase found from 
them is 1.32 degrees then I could conclude with extremely high 
confidence (in other words, I would stake my life on it) that there is 
an actual temperature increase. I could go further and claim 95% 
confidence limits for the actual temperature increase being between 1.26 
and 1.37 degrees. Having a 95% confidence means that using this proper 
procedure I would have successfully bracketed the actual value with a 
probability of .95. These statistical conclusions are all exact numbers 
based on sound mathematics but concern an underlying process that itself 
is never known with absolute precision. That is totally different than 
me casually saying "I measured this big number and it really looks 
convincing, doesn't it"


So I'm sorry, but you very much can determine that radiation exposure 
leads to cancer without ever knowing that any single case of cancer was 
due to radiation. From a mathematical point of view you could do that 
best with a  controlled experiment where 100 people are exposed to 
radiation and comparing them to a test group of 100 who weren't. Of 
course that experiment is unethical (but has been done with animals) so 
you have to collect epidemiological statistics and these are more 
subject to confounding factors. The cancer rate increased from 3.3% to 
4.1% after the nuclear reactor was installed. For a community of several 
thousand, that would be a statistically significant increase. But there 
was also a chemical plant opened during the same period. And the ability 
to 

Re: [Marxism] [pen-l] Fwd: Is a Controversial Nuclear Plant to Blame for Soaring Thyroid Cancer Rates in New York? | Alternet

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 12/6/17 10:00 AM, Jeff via Marxism wrote:


My main concern in these regards is that leftists, especially Marxists 
who proudly (and justly!) assert that our understandings are 
scientifically supported, do not make fools of themselves when it comes 
to the hard sciences. If you're not really sure about a scientific fact, 
then please just say so and don't try to conclude that scientific claims 
which happen to favor your political agenda are valid for that reason. 
Because if you do, then in the end what you claim to be a "Marxist" 
position will be disproved by what is properly concluded using the 
scientific method, and all claims we make within the social sciences 
will appear no more trustworthy than our careless claims in the hard 
sciences.


- Jeff


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.


Even if the data indicates higher than usual contamination, how can you 
establish it led to thyroid or breast cancer?


The same thing is true of pesticides and herbicides. How can you 
establish that Monsanto is guilty of jeopardizing our health by selling 
products that after leaching into the soil cause bladder cancer, was the 
case with Sandra Steingraber?


You can certainly prove that drinking a fifth of whiskey every day can 
cause cirrhosis of the liver but what kind of experiment can prove that 
living near Indian Point causes thyroid cancer? It is only 
"circumstantial evidence".


Meanwhile, the best course of action is to overthrow the capitalist 
system and build a society based mostly on alternative energy sources. 
Even if the evidence is only circumstantial, that's no reason to risk 
the health of the human race.

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Re: [Marxism] [pen-l] Fwd: Is a Controversial Nuclear Plant to Blame for Soaring Thyroid Cancer Rates in New York? | Alternet

[Jeff via Marxism]

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On 2017-12-06 14:30, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote:


On 12/5/17 12:52 PM, DW via Marxism wrote:


This paper (from the link posted by Louis P.)  has "junk science / 
quack

medicine" stamped in red all over it, for a number of reasons.


This is ridiculous. The study, which was conducted under the auspices
of Columbia University and not Gary Null, simply states:

"The data do not represent conclusive proof


Exactly. In order to be published in a scientific journal it couldn't 
state conclusions that are unsupported by the data. But in a popular 
science article there are no rules on what can be published, so if one 
is publishing in order to advance an agenda then any sort of innuendo 
may be employed -- and does not amount to lying! -- such as simply 
questioning "Is a Controversial Nuclear Plant to Blame...?" That's like 
me simply questioning "Is Louis Proyect actually a space alien? Would 
that not explain X, Y and Z about him?"


It was also clear to me almost as soon as I started reading the article 
that it qualified as "junk science", or  perhaps "junk journalism" based 
on an otherwise properly published paper whose data couldn't support any 
firm conclusions, but when exported to the popular press can, for 
instance, include testimonials from individual cancer patients as if 
their individual perceptions had any weight. But even as a properly 
published scientific paper, I'd already be more suspicious of a paper 
whose authors are working for an advocacy group; it would be as if I 
were investigating the dangers of smoking and began by reading papers 
published by (yes, actual) scientists working for the tobacco industry.



I understand that David and Marty Goodman are pro-nuclear


Right, and so I would also not base my knowledge just on what they 
assert. That is the entire reason that the scientific method was 
developed: to be able to make actual conclusions (and attach levels of 
statistical confidence to them) and separate those from beliefs or 
careless generalizations even when the "evidence seems compelling." But 
look (and I'm pretty sure David will agree), it has been pretty well 
established that there has been radiological health damage from nuclear 
weapon testing, uranium mining and processing, nuclear reactor 
accidents, and nuclear waste disposal. What political/policy conclusions 
you want to reach about nuclear power (etc.) is a very separate pursuit 
from these scientific studies and neither should be held hostage to the 
other.


My main concern in these regards is that leftists, especially Marxists 
who proudly (and justly!) assert that our understandings are 
scientifically supported, do not make fools of themselves when it comes 
to the hard sciences. If you're not really sure about a scientific fact, 
then please just say so and don't try to conclude that scientific claims 
which happen to favor your political agenda are valid for that reason. 
Because if you do, then in the end what you claim to be a "Marxist" 
position will be disproved by what is properly concluded using the 
scientific method, and all claims we make within the social sciences 
will appear no more trustworthy than our careless claims in the hard 
sciences.


- Jeff
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Re: [Marxism] [pen-l] Fwd: Is a Controversial Nuclear Plant to Blame for Soaring Thyroid Cancer Rates in New York? | Alternet

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On 12/5/17 12:52 PM, DW via Marxism wrote:


This paper (from the link posted by Louis P.)  has "junk science / quack
medicine" stamped in red all over it, for a number of reasons.


This is ridiculous. The study, which was conducted under the auspices of 
Columbia University and not Gary Null, simply states:


"The data do not represent conclusive proof of a cause-and-effect 
association, but are a reminder of the need to conduct more studies 
addressing the issue of potential spatial relations between 
environmental iodine and local risk of thyroid cancer."


I understand that David and Marty Goodman are pro-nuclear but really...
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Re: [Marxism] [pen-l] Fwd: Is a Controversial Nuclear Plant to Blame for Soaring Thyroid Cancer Rates in New York? | Alternet

[DW via Marxism]

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Forwarded from from an associate, a revolutionary Marxist and Medical
Doctor.
--David Walters

This paper (from the link posted by Louis P.)  has "junk science / quack
medicine" stamped in red all over it, for a number of reasons.

1. Overwhelmingly and most important, first off, we see absolutely *no*
presentation of measurements of I131 (iodine 131) or other alleged exposure
levels by people in the region to anything this radiation-hysteria-monger
might claim is a causative agent here.

No  evidence is actually presented.  And presentation of an exposure dose,
and comparison of it to what we know from past experience can and cannot
cause disease, is a critical aspect of any legitimate paper on a subject
like this.  The absence of this is a *huge* red flag that informs the
reader this is *Junk Science*, done to deceitfully promote a particular
ideology adhered to on faith by the author.  This is *not* the work of an
intellectually honest individual.  This is not an application of scientific
method.

2. The second dramatic indication that this is Junk Science, is encountered
when one reads in this paper the following citation:

"The statistical aberration of increased cancer rates should be a concern
to us all,” said Peter Schwartz, a Rockland County businessman diagnosed
with thyroid cancer in 1986. "After Fukushima, it finally occurred to me
that my thyroid cancer was connected to Indian Point.”

Medical / epidemiological papers that attempt to support their content by
citing *single* case studies and invoke the *conviction* of the
superstitious individual as evidence of the statistical association they
are trying to establish (to say nothing of a cause and effect
relationship!) are pretty near always the result of a partisan writing who
has  no interest at all in finding out what is going on, and is interested
*only* in "proving" the theory he or she believes on faith and wants to
promote.   This is a sleazy effort to appeal to those not educated in
science and medicine, and thus ignorant of what is and isn't important to
proving such contentions.

3. The author writes "Little is known of thyroid cancer".  Well... little
is known of most things in medicine... the whole reality of
scientific-based, evidence based medicine is a very new thing in human
history.  For the most part, it began in 1944 with the wide availability of
penicillin, so it's well under a century old.  That said, we *do* have a
lot of experience with exposures to I131, the only radioactive agent
specifically known to have the potential to cause thyroid cancer.  We have
experience with it both in accidental situations (Chernobyl) and in
situations where people are *deliberately* exposed to it (in the thousands
of people treated with I131 for thyroid nodules, including cancer).

So it IS known what doses of exposure are and are not associated with no
chance, a very tiny chance, and a higher chance of causing thyroid cancer.
But the author doesn't want to go into that, because such information as
what doses people encountered and what doses are known to be entirely
harmless would show what deceitful crap his paper is.

4. Note that the estimate of number of thyroid cancers from nuclear testing
he cites is a *theoretical estimate*, not something based on actual real
world observation or measurement.   And given the period of time from which
that estimate dates, it virtually certainly was made employing as
theoretical model LNT (Linear Non Threshold) hypothesis of radiation
effects on humans.  A theoretical model now known to be grossly false, and
known to be promoted by scientists who it has been proven deliberately
faked their data for ideological reasons.  It's a model that gives results
of sensitivity of humans to ill medical effects of radiation that are 100
to 1000 times greater than an honest and accurate model based on study and
evidence shows.

5. After the Fukushima melt downs, the Japanese went to great lengths to
look for an increase in thyroid cancer in children, which they were told
could be the result of I131 release from the three nuclear disasters
there.Hysteria was raised over utterly totally 100% false claims and
significant physical harm done to children as a result.  Here's why:

(a) Methods used to search for nodules in children's thyroids were far more
advanced and sensitive than any used in previous studies of incidence of
such in children in the region.  Also, a larger fraction of children were
examined... the new surveys were far more thorough and extensive than the
old ones from which the old, comparison data was obtained.  So *of course*
the result of the new studies was that more thyroid