Dear all
To continue the debate as far as environmental factors are concerned, I
have seen nothing at least recently in the UK media (ie the BBC) about the
findings of the New Zealand forensic chemist who claims that cot deaths
are due to rare element actinides that have been promoted as a result of
fireproofing cot mattresses. The URL is www.cotlife2000.co.nz. He
promotes putting the mattress in a wrapper that is impervious to these
heavy gases - which he also markets by the way.
The claim is that there have been no cot deaths in 1995-1999 associated
with the use of matress wrapping (presumably of a fairly small number) cf
about 400 in the previous 5 years.
Parents are bombarded regularly with changes in advice about how to avoid
cot deaths - don't smoke, don't have the baby in bed, put him/her with his
feet the bottom of the cot etc etc. The first two are at least under the
control of the parents but in my experience at least, a baby on his/her
back with feet to the bottom will soon move so that he/she is exactly in
the wrong position - head at the top and on the tummy. Does that make me
liable to prosecution?
Comments? What is the significance of these recommendations? Very little
I would guess so why not wrap your mattress - at least it can't do too
much harm and saves getting it wet!
John
John Logsdon "Try to make things as simple
Quantex Research Ltd, Manchester UK as possible but not simpler"
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+44(0)161 445 4951/G:+44(0)7768982349 www.quantex-research.com
On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, John Whittington wrote:
> At 15:12 20/01/04 +0000, Tony Greenfield wrote:
>
> >During the seventies there was a multi-centre study into cot deaths in
> >England and Scotland run from Sheffield. The director was Professor John
> >Knoweldon and the principal paediatric pathologist was Professor John
> >Emery. They have both died since. I was the medical statistician
> >responsible for analysing the data and worked closely with Knoweldon and
> >Emery for two years: 1978 to 1980.
> >I no longer have the data or reports but guess I could obtain them from
> >the archives of Sheffield University's department of community medicine.
> >One of the main findings was that the risk of sudden death of a child was
> >increased if a previous sibling had died. This is not necessarily
> >genetic: more likely environment and management. In other words, the
> >probabilities of two deaths in the same family are not independent.
>
> Indeed - but one obviously has to be careful when one moves away from
> constitutional (i.e. genetic) factors contributing to SIDS to
> 'environmental' ones as reasons for the lack of independence - since
> someone (and we have a few candidates available!) would be bound to claim
> that a major reason for the lack of independence was that parents who had
> killed one of their infants would be more likely to kill another! As
> valuable ammunition for the defence in such cases, one would need evidence
> of the lack of independence in cases which were 'definitely not' cases of
> parental murder - really impossible to establish, since we know so little
> about most of these deaths that we cannot rule out parental
> murder. However, if one could establish the existence of constitutional
> (or non-homicidal environmental/management) reasons for non-independence,
> that would help a lot.
>
> >The evidence by Professor Meadows, in which he presented a very small
> >probability (one in 76 million, I think) of two cot deaths in the same
> >family, is totally absurd. It struck me as such when I first heard of it
> >and I, unforgivably, assumed that the lawyers and their advisers would
> >understand that.
>
> Indeed - it's absurd and statistically naive - I presume probably as
> simplistic as the square of the probability of a single cot death. As you
> say, it is extraordinary that this suggestion was not effectively (or at
> all?) challenged by the defence, who presumable will have had statistical
> advisors - so their seems to be legal incompetence at work here as well.
>
> Kind Regards,
>
>
> John
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
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