from 9.25 to 12.5 deaths per week is significant... but 3 more deaths across the entire west coast is fairly small.
without a comparison to same period last year, there is no discounting yearly trends. maybe that time of year is when the pollen count drastically increases, causing problems. maybe is was unusually rainy. maybe the preceding weeks were unusually low and the subsequent weeks were back to normal.
you can make statistics say anything you want... knowing the answer you’re looking for ahead of time, makes it easier to find.
BS.
It’s astounding to see the lengths to which some people will go to demonize nuclear power. Why not compare infant mortality around coal power plants, which routinely emit far more radioactive material than all the nuclear power plants in the world combined?
Perhaps, those Liberals, living in this area have been using for a longer time, the soon to be, Gov. mandated fluorescent light bulbs. Perhaps a study on 'birth/death stats should be considered, per this now Government, light-changing and who knows, maybe 'life-changing' MO.
But picking only the data that suits your analysis isn’t science—it’s politics. Beware those who would confuse the latter with the former.
Gee, Scientific American, where have we heard that criticism before? What branch of "science" seems to do this routinely, and yet never gets called on it by the "Scientific" American.
Let me think... I know I can remember if I try...
What a shame.
While it certainly is true that there were fewer deaths in the four weeks leading up to Fukushima (in green) than there have been in the 10 weeks following (in red), the entire year has seen no overall trend.
When I plotted a best-fit line to the data (in blue), Excel calculated a very slight decrease in the infant mortality rate. Only by explicitly excluding data from January and February were Sherman and Mangano able to froth up their specious statistical scaremongering.
Figures don’t like.. but liars figure..
10. kukuiawana
10:56 PM 6/21/11And what are the causes of these deaths? Acute death by radiation poisoning takes a huge dose, much larger than would reasonably have been expected given the distances involved. Lower doses can result in chronic problems (i.e. higher cancer rates) which will impact long term mortality, but it will obviously take a lot more time to see any impact on statistics.
Has anyone proposed a reasonable mechanism by which sub-acute radiation exposure can increase infant mortality?
The other issue is cause of death. A spike in deaths from all causes means what? Probably nothing; it certainly can't be pinned on the effect of a tiny radiation spike that is within natural variability (e.g., an airline passenger is exposed to more radiation than someone at sea level). A spike in deaths from a single cause may or may not mean anything. Mangano, one of the study authors, is an epidemiologist: he should have known that, because one of the biggest challenges of his profession is trying to establish whether a spike in the number of cases is due to a real cause, or due to a random clustering of cases.
Even if there is a real spike in deaths from a certain cause, and a strong correlation is shown between them and the earthquake--how do we know those deaths weren't caused by the paranoid reactions of parents doing weird things to try to "protect" their babies from the radiation? I notice that the cities chosen for the analysis are among the most liberal cities in the country; it's amazing some of the things whacky liberals will do, thinking they're doing something good.