Save the Tallywhackers!!

Jolene! Jolene! Answer me woman! Don't be givin' Junior no more of them
there flintsone vitamins, cuz it says right here that vitamins cause the
prostate cancer. Thats right woman, ifn' you want grand kids don't be
gving him no more vitamins. Its bad enough that my Momma gave them to me,
but you aint gonna ruin our son. Great googley moogley, is that why you
is always trying to get me to eat right and take the centrum? Thats just
plain mean. I told you that that waitress was an accident, but you aint
gotta go so far as to try and kill my tallywhacker. Why you lookin' at me
the way, It says right here in black and white that vitamins cause cancer
of the prostate, and when that happens your tallywhacker stops workin. It
happend to Bobby Jon down the road, and now his wife is seein a trucker,
ain't that just a shame.

I love reading the headlines of the latest scare research. Today it was
multivitamins increase your risk of advanced prostate cancer. Men taking
multivitamins showed a 32 percent increased risk of advanced prostate
cancer and a 98 percent increased risk of fatal prostate cancer. oooo,
scary stuff. Lets look at the actual numbers behind the percentages.
There were 295,344 men in the survey, only 1,476 developed advanced
prostate cancer, 179 developed fatal prostate cancer. So the absolute
risk of developing advanced prostate cancer is .49%, and 0.06% for fatal.
Worst case scenario, you still have less than 1% chance of developing
advanced or fatal prostate cancer. Not very scary is it.

In other news, the Mediterranean Diet reduces the risk Of COPD. Glad to
hear it. Really, I think a diet rich in fruits and vegetables is a good
thing. 111 people out of 43000 developed COPD, giving us an absolute risk
of 0.258%. Is a 50% reduction of 0.258% really meaningful? I think not.

With all of the problems in the world today why can't scientist focus on
sovling real problems instead of producing meaningless statistics that
serve no purpose. Furthermore, when does correlation imply causation?
NEVER! While we keep hearing about this is associated with that, all these
associations don't add up to diddley squat. There is an old joke that
goes, What do you call a bus load of lawyers at the bottom of the Ocean?
"A Good Start", I think a bus load of epidemiologist would be a fine
follow up.