Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: $Revision: 1.6.2.16 $; site inmet.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!cca!inmet!janw
From: janw@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: Extent of hunger in America
Message-ID: <7800565@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 17-Oct-85 11:15:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: inmet.7800565
Posted: Thu Oct 17 11:15:00 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 20-Oct-85 09:15:21 EDT
References: <215@gargoyle.UUCP>
Lines: 39
Nf-ID: #R:gargoyle:-21500:inmet:7800565:000:2002
Nf-From: inmet!janw    Oct 17 11:15:00 1985


[Richard Carnes quotes some medical groups' pronouncements
on problems of malnutrition in America] 
[Nat Howard remarks that doctors, qua doctors, are only experts on part
of the problem]

True. But there is another side to it. Methods of one  field  are
sometimes  successfully  applied  in another. But it is *rigorous
methods*, and not titles or names, that are, or  should  be,  the
criteria  of truth. E.g., doctors require, for a new drug, a dou-
bly blind test: the patient doesn't know what he takes,  and  the
person  administering  the  drug does not know what he gives. And
for good reason: breaking even one of these rules is  enough  for
the  results  to be unreliable: bias creeps in, whether you are a
freshman or a Nobel laureate. If the doctors had brought at least
some of that rigor into their social studies, then, at the very
least, people collecting the raw data would not know what it  is
for,  and  people  who evaluate it would not know where it comes
from. E.g., a panel of Harvard physicians could be given  statis-
tics  of  anemia  from Mississipi, but told they come from Cuba -
and vice versa. Of course, with experts the stunt is not  easy  -
but still necessary.

What Richard describes sounds just the opposite. The group on the
Mississipi  mission were clearly sure they would find "hunger" if
only because they had found some in  New  England,  and  everyone
knows  Mississipi  must be worse. 
 Their quoted statements are like an ad : very sweeping at  first
glance,  but  little  to pin them down on. Nothing wrong with ad-
vertising (or promoting a cause) - except that it is  not  objec-
tive.   Quite probably, had they come with a "no hunger" verdict,
they would have shocked many colleagues, would have been labelled
the  Meeses  of  medicine,  accused of insensitivity. All that in
addition to the vested interests I mentioned before.

We have a counsel for the prosecution sitting as jury;
and only a blind test could make them impartial.

		Jan Wasilewsky