Since the assumption of this thread seems to be that all research on the link between alcohol and cancer is correlational and epidemiological, I thought I would do a Google Scholar search on alcohol and cancer and see what is out there. What was out there was approximately 814,000 hits. Of course these could all be correlational studies (and many are probably duplicates) so I clicked on the second one in the list and found an interesting article on possible biological mechanisms (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2686698). I also found a link to a review of studies of alcohol and cancer as early as 1986 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3035901). The last line of the abstract was, “Animal models are needed in which effects of ethanol on carcinogenesis can be consistently demonstrated and which can then be used to examine mechanisms”. I thought it unlikely that no experimental work had ensued in the intervening years. Indeed, a 2004 review article is available full text on the web at: http://alcalc.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/39/3/155 that includes sections on Animal Models and Possible Biological Mechanisms. The reference list of the article has links to many related articles available in full-text.
Rick Dr. Rick Froman, Chair Division of Humanities and Social Sciences Professor of Psychology Box 3055 John Brown University 2000 W. University Siloam Springs, AR 72761 [email protected] (479)524-7295 http://tinyurl.com/DrFroman "That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood....Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet. These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land — a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights." Barack Obama, Inaugural Address, January 20, 2009 From: Christopher D. Green [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2009 4:15 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] BBC NEWS | Health | Drink a day increases cancer risk Amadio, Dean wrote: Are you saying that we should ignore all non-experimental research? Of course not. I saying we should draw from correlational research the conclusions that are justified by correlational research. I'm concerned you're giving this message to your students! This is the justification the tobacco industry used to say that there is no evidence that smoking causes lung cancer in humans. But they were simply wrong. Part of it was correlational, but there was (eventually) lots of good animal and histological and biochemcial research that proved what the correlations suggested might be the case. It might well have turned out otherwise. It took good research, not correlational speculations to establish the causal connection. Your argument seems to be that just because one famous correlational connection proved (upon further experimental research) to be underpinned by a causal connection (tobacco-cancer), that all such correlations must be underpinned by a causal connection (alcohol-cancer). Obviously, that is a very poor inference. we have to adopt a wait and see and skeptical, but perhaps somewhat prudent attitude. This is precisely the message I give students. Telling your students on the basis of merely suggestive research of this sort that they should wholly abstain from alcohol is not merely prudent. It is alarmist, and unwarranted by the currently available data. While the BBC article certainly overstated much (as is typical with popular media), I think calling these types of studies "ridiculous" is very misleading, and in some instances, downright dangerous. I repeat: Even if the causal connection were established here, the rise in in cancer risk would amount to 2 in 10,000. Does that strike you as dangerous? That's about the same as the probability of being killed in a car accident (see http://www.fearlessflight.com/airplane-disasters-plane-crash-statistics). Do you totally abstain from riding in cars for fear of being killed in one? Regards, Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ ========================== --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected]) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
