I thought it was Mondale with a tan, although that sort of upgrades Carter....like going from an F to a D-.

Bush: Israel won because it cut off the flow of arms from Syria to Hezbollah. "Speaking to reporters at the State Department, Bush brushed aside suggestions that ... the war had resulted in anything less than a clear defeat for Hezbollah. Bush said the resolution ratified Friday in the United Nations addressed what he called the root causes of the conflict: the ability of Hezbollah, a radical Shiite militia, to control southern Lebanon and the shipment of arms to the group from Iran through Syria."

• QUESTION: How can the international force, or the United States if necessary, prevent Iran from resupplying Hezbollah?
  
  BUSH: The first step is -- and part of the mandate in the U.N. resolution was to secure Syria's borders. Iran is able to ship weapons to Hezbollah through Syria. . . . In other words, part of the mandate and part of the mission of the troops, the UNIFIL troops, will be to seal off the Syrian border.

What are his aides telling him?

http://maxspeak.org/mt/archives/Leb.JPG

Oops.

Warning: math

Relative risk is the ratio of the percentage of the exposed population with a disease over the percentage of the non-exposed population with the disease. Usually the populations are from the same general geographic area and the same general age. If there were no association with exposure, the relative risk would equal 1. If the exposure were good for you (i.e. less people get sick) the relative risk would equal <1. If the exposure is bad for you the RR would be >1.

An RR of 1.9 means that a person exposed is 90% more likely to get the disease than someone not exposed. It's up to you to decide if that's an acceptable risk.

The reason I keep telling you to go back and read the report is that no one study can tell you the relative risk of getting lung cancer from second hand smoke. It can only tell you the RR for that particular study. The RRs range from around 0.95 to 12.6 (in males in India, weird), but it seems that they tend to hover around 1.35 or so, which is is a 35% greater cancer risk than for people not regularly exposed to second hand smoke. Nowadays, they're fine tuning the studies to look at the levels of exposure over time.

You were bitching about the media dumbing everything down to scare people, but you didn't go and read the report yourself to find out what the real story (as far as anyone can tell based on current evidence) is.

You've been bitching that anyone can prove anything in a study. Yes, that's true. That's why there are over 50 studies and five or so different design methods (cohort, case control, pooled analysis, etc) looking at the effects on lung cancer cases in the report, and that's why the report has a LOT of conclusions that are worded like this: "The evidence is inadequate to infer the presence or absence of a causual relationship between secondhand smoke exposure and the risk of cervical cancer among lifetime nonsmokers." It just so happens that lung cancer doesn't get a "inadequate to infer"; it gets a "the evidence is sufficient to infer".

You started this whole thing by saying that no one has ever proven that second hand smoke causes lung cancer (ignoring all of the other diseases associated with second hand smoke). I said, uh, yeah, actually they have, repeatedly and I've given you several cites as to where they have, including a very comphrensive summary of ALL of the studies on the subject. Now you're quibbling over the numbers.

Frankly, I think it's irresponsible to refuse to publish something because the RR is too low, but I did note that there was only one study from the NEJM in the bibliography. Good science should show that there is no or little association as well as showing that there is an association.

Warning: Simplification.

I understand how an RR works. I also understand that an RR of 1.9 is a lousy RR, and a lot of reputable researchers wouldn't even include it (as I noted).

I understand the study and did read what you cited. An RR of 1.9 for a disease with an exceedingly low incidence in non-smokers means a non-smoker in the presence of smokers minimally increases a very insignificant risk.

For RT
 

How could it be irresponsible to not publish something with an exceedingly low RR?

For RT
 

If we accept your hypothesis that RR under something greater than 2 is negligible, then it might be irresponsible not to publish because if not published, other researchers won't know that the effect of the variable studied is negligible. If they don't know it's already been studied, they may decide to study it. This is a waste of research resources.

Also, telling people that the increased risk is negligible can debunk myths about stuff.

For RT
 

Posts like this are most appropriate for PM. No offence.

eta: or conference IM.

Warning: question.

How can a relative risk be lousy or not? Doesn't any relative risk necessarily have associated with it a confidence interval of some sort that will illuminate how certain that relative risk is?

For RT
 

What is the basis for saying RR under 2 is negligible? If the findings have a high degree of statistical certainty, why shouldn't one care even about a 10% increase in risk, if the risk is sufficiently costly? All of these calculations are meaningless without recognition of the costs of both the regulation and the harm. What are the costs of banning smoking in many public places (they do exist, for sure). What are the costs of not banning smoking in public places if we are confident that doing so will reduce the incidence of lung cancer by even 10%?

For RT
 

Because if the null hypothisis (null hypothesis means that the RR=1) turns out to be correct, that's important information for science to consider.

At the very beginning of this, you said you could find studies that disprove the cancer risk associated with secondhand smoke if you looked hard enough. If the science journals refuse to publish an article with a low RR, you're never going to be able to find those studies and the world gets a very incomplete picture of science. We would only see the extremes, and we would never see the subtle nuances and really figure out what has an impact on our health and what doesn't. Both sides of the story need to be fully examined, if only to discard a theory of risk.

And while the lower than 2 RR in the secondhand smoke lung cancer studies may be unimportant to you, it may be important to the estimated 3000 or so people a year who die of lung cancer because of second hand smoke. Or it may matter a little more to the person whose risk was already elevated due to family history or asbestos exposure back or radon exposure.

For RT
 

I assume this is directed to Sebby. Because I noted that the discussion was predicated on accepting his hypothesis. So Sebinski, have at it.

For RT
 

OK. I see the sense in publishing (and that it would tend to bolster my earliest point from an angle I hadn't considered).

The thing I have a serious issue with is the misrepresentation of those 3000 people as 3 million. 3000 cancers a year from second hand smoke doesn't seem a senseible basis for banning smoking on a beach.

The public takes medical research and twists its findings to their scariest ends. yet no one stands up and says "Hey, wait a minute. NOBODY. Nobody ever, ever will get cancer from second hand smoke on a beach." My gripe here, which I think you understand, is the manipulation of data into hysteria-causing lies, which lead to silly, ineffective do-gooderism, and the fact that if you challenge it, you're seen as evil. Why can't somebody honestly say "Yeh, the chances of getting cancer fro 2d hand smoke on a beach are zero, and anyone who says otherwise is being hysterical." You say that and the PC police kill you, even though the data (and common sense) back you up.

I don't like stats being twisted to fit anyone's agenda, particularly by our govt, because people believe them like they're divine edicts. Hence, we get nonsense like Dow Corning being sued into bkcy over implants which never caused the diseases they were blamed for causing. Why aren't the people who trumpeted shit science there being sued by the company's estate?

Its politically ok to lie in this country if it supports something a swath of do-gooders (or neocons) like. It shouldn't be. The people in San Diego have a right to know the real absolute risk of 2d hand smoke on a beach.

For RT
 

I understand that, and that's why I've repeatedly gone back to the studies, which, in my opinion, are pretty conclusive. It's not a lie, it's just that people don't bother to actually read beyond the first paragraph of any given newspaper report (which usually does tell you how many people were in the study, how many got sick, and what the result was), and they certainly don't troll Medline for fun. I'm a very sick person, and I acknowledge that.

But it's also irresponsible to say that there's no risk when it's clear that there is a risk. And the 3000 people dying from lung cancer every year are not the complete picture. You have to add the asthmatics and the people with coronary heart disease and the people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and the people with reproductive problems. We've been focusing only on one chapter of a 11 chapter report. It adds up to a pretty nasty health hazard that's fairly easily avoided. It's not just the cancers. You keep focusing on that, but if it were just the cancer it wouldn't be as much of an issue. Nobody might get cancer from secondhand smoke on a beach, but it's not at all inconceivable that an asthma attack wouldn't be triggered from the same smoke.

I think that we've handled the mad cow scare pretty fucking well here, compared to other places. We acknowledged the risk, we changed the way that feedlots were run, we stopped importing cows from countries where the disease is prevalent, we've immediately eliminated sick cows from the herds, and for the most part--aside from Oprah's hysteronics a few years back--the media hasn't overblown the whole thing. Compare that to Canada, which downplayed the issue too much and now they've got a serious problem in their beef industry, and England, which over hyped it so much it's impossible to pleasurably eat a hamburger there.

But do you condemn it utterly and without qualification?

(The swarthy guy is Omar Torrijos, leader of Panama. The context is signing the Panama Canal Treaties. The jpeg incorrectly says "General Trujillo" which is ironic, not just because he was dead by then).

Yeah, boy, look what a disaster that's turned out to be.