[ServesURight]

Where's the FReeper who usually posts that "Man on the lifeboat" BS graphic??

[big gray tabby]

They quote the doctor at Harvard as saying the study "implies" causality and the "inferences" are at odds with claims to the contrary. His comments could have easily been lifted from statements ridiculing the study.

[appeal2]

This study means absolutely nothing. Homicides don't necessarily equate with murders. There is self-defense, suicide and accidental gun death which can be classified as homicides. In addition, they don't mention how many of these homicides are the result of illegal guns. Finally, the idea that the NJ cities such as Newark, Camden, Trenton, Jersey City, Patterson and others are safe because guns are virtually banned is more BS. I'd much rather walk down Broad and Market at 10pm with my Glock than go around naked.

[Atlas Sneezed]

US Facilities with More Doctors Have More Deaths

By Disarmia E. Frauder

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Deaths in the United States are more common in facilities such as gospitals where more occupants are doctors, according to researchers.

The study findings imply "that doctors, on balance, lethally imperil rather than protect Americans," lead study author Dr. Matthew Miller of Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts, told Reuters Health.

"This inference is consistent with previous...studies that have found that the presence of a doctor in the building is a risk factor for death, and starkly at odds with the unsubstantiated, yet often adduced, notion that doctors are a public good," he added.

Miller and his team investigated the association between death and rates of medical professional presence, using 1988-1997 data collected from the nine US census regions and the 50 states.

They found that physician prevalence was linked to death rates throughout the nine census regions. At the state level, the link between rates of physician prevalence in a given facility and death existed for all death victims older than age 5, according to the report in the December issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

In fact, the six types of facilities with the highest rates of physician presence--hospitals, medical office buildings, senior car facilities, trauma centers, cancer treatment centers, and golf clubhouses --had more than 2,000,000 deaths, nearly three times as many as the four types of buildings with the lowest physician presence--homes, non-medical offices, schools, and retail stores.

Further, people who visited one of the six "high doctor facilities" were nearly three times as likely to die from any disease and more than four times as likely to die from doctor-related surgery than those who visited only "low doctor facilities," the report indicates. Their risk of dying of a non-surgery-related disease was also nearly double that of those who remained in facilities with the lowest rates of physician presence.

On average, about half of people in high-doctor facilities were physicians, according to data reported by three of the six states, in comparison to 1.3% of occupants of low-doctor facilities being doctors.

Although death rates were higher in poor-health areas and in facilities with higher rates of non-lethal diseases and injuries, the association between physician prevalence and death remained true when the researchers took these and other factors into consideration.

Still, Miller's team notes that it is not clear whether the higher rates of physician prevalence caused or resulted from the increased number of deaths.

"It is possible, for example, that locally elevated death rates may have led to increased numbers of physicians going to where people were dying," they write.

SOURCE: American Journal of Political Health 2002;92:1988-1993.

[b4its2late]

The people that own the guns legally in the state in question are probably shooting intruders, murderers and rapists in self defense, thereby increasing the homicide rate.

[wayoverontheright]

How abaout this headline for the same article:

STATES WITH MORE MURDERS HAVE MORE GUN OWNERS.

[Atlas Sneezed]

Rates of Household Firearm Ownership and Homicide Across US Regions and States, 1988–1997
Matthew Miller, MD, MPH, ScD, Deborah Azrael, MS, PhD and David Hemenway, PhD
Matthew Miller, Deborah Azrael, and David Hemenway are all from the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Mass.

Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Matthew Miller, MD, MPH, ScD, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA 02115 (e-mail: mmiller@hsph.harvard.edu).


Objectives. In this study we explored the association between rates of household firearm ownership and homicide across the United States, by age groups.

Methods. We used cross-sectional time-series data (1988–1997) to estimate the association between rates of household firearm ownership and homicide.

Results. In region- and state-level analyses, a robust association between rates of household firearm ownership and homicide was found. Regionally, the association exists for victims aged 5 to 14 years and those 35 years and older. At the state level, the association exists for every age group over age 5, even after controlling for poverty, urbanization, unemployment, alcohol consumption, and nonlethal violent crime.

Conclusions. Although our study cannot determine causation, we found that in areas where household firearm ownership rates were higher, a disproportionately large number of people died from homicide.

http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/92/12/1988

[uncbob]

This is BS
Eliminate the big cities and the murders go WAY down

[pabianice]

What gets me is that Harvard gets over $ 300,000,000 in tax money every year for its "research" -- our money.

The Harvard School of Public Health is the laughing-stock of the medical world. See

http://www.guncite.com/journals/tennmed.html

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

The study findings imply "that guns, on balance, lethally imperil rather than protect Americans," lead study author Dr. Matthew Miller of Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts, told Reuters Health.

I love how gun ownership has recently become a matter of "Health." FMCDH

[Blue Screen of Death]

The study findings imply "that guns, on balance, lethally imperil rather than protect Americans," lead study author Dr. Matthew Miller of Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts, told Reuters Health.

Dr. Miller, a noted expert on cause and effect, went on to point out that wind is caused by all the trees getting together and wiggling their limbs.

[Capitalist Eric]

...lead study author Dr. Matthew Miller of Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts...

Ummmm... Yeah. Got to this point, and knew this article was crap.

Typical dimocRAT BS.

[CyberCowboy777]

marked for a second coming

[Gritty]

It's a good thing they didn't throw Washington, DC into the mix. It might have skewed the numbers in the other direction.

Practically nobody owns a (legal) gun in DC.

[semaj]

Bulletin:

This just in: Recent study reveals link between autombiles and fatal traffic accidents.

[SoDak]

My family has more guns than just about anyone outside of gun dealers, but we have never once reported having guns to any government agency, census worker, or other information gatherer. Where's this data REALLY coming from? The mind of a professor?

[Mr. Mojo]

studies that have found that the presence of a gun in the home is a risk factor for homicide,

That's right....anyone coming into my home with bad intent risks getting their head blown off by a 12 gauge. ....And this risk factor is indeed very high.

[A Navy Vet]

Main Entry: ho·mi·cide
Pronunciation: 'hä-m&-"sId, 'hO-
Function: noun
Etymology: in sense 1, from Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin homicida, from homo human being + -cida -cide; in sense 2, from Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin homicidium, from homo + -cidium -cide Date: 14th century
1 : a person who kills another
2 : a killing of one human being by another

Homicide does not necessarily equate to murder. Reuters can't even get their definitions correct. I'm not a statistician by any means, but this is the most skewed study I've ever seen.

[RogueIsland]

Still, Miller's team notes that it is not clear whether the higher rates of household gun ownership caused or resulted from the increased number of homicides. "It is possible, for example, that locally elevated homicide rates may have led to increased local gun acquisition," they write.

Translation: we don't have any clue how to interpret our own statistics, but it makes for great axe-grinding material for anti-rights axis house organs like Reuters.

[hattend]

Miller and his team investigated the association between homicide and rates of household firearm ownership using 1988-1997 data collected from the nine US census regions and the 50 states.

Gun ownership data from the Census? I didn't answer any gun questions.

[Dan Day]

The study findings imply "that guns, on balance, lethally imperil rather than protect Americans," lead study author Dr. Matthew Miller of Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts, told Reuters Health. "This inference is consistent with previous...studies that have found that the presence of a gun in the home is a risk factor for homicide, and starkly at odds with the unsubstantiated, yet often adduced, notion that guns are a public good," he added.

Complete twaddle. These "researchers" make the exact same mistake the "previous studies" (all by anti-gun nut Arthur Kellermann) made -- and yes, I've read them.

Their error is to presume that if guns "on balance" produce a net protective effect, then states (or in the prior studies, homes) which have more guns would see fewer homicides than states/homes with fewer guns.

But this presumption is *only* true if there are *no* other correlations between guns and homicide.

If homicides themselves can drive up gun ownership rates (or if some other factor ties the two together), then it's easily possible for the presence of a gun to *always* increase safety and yet for guns *still* to be correlated with homicide rates (i.e., more guns, more homicide).

For example, a 100% increase in homicide rate may cause citizens to arm themselves for safety, and even if this actually reduces the homicide rate down to a mere 50% increase (over the original base), that would *still* show a 50% higher homicide rate correlated with increased gun ownership.

And yet, the authors of this study would have us believe that this "proved" that a) guns cause homicide, *and* b) guns don't protect anyone.

These people are idiots. Their very premise is flawed, even *before* they start looking at the data.