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More on Australia's helmet law propaganda.



 
 
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  #11  
Old February 22nd 19, 08:10 AM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
news18
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Posts: 1,131
Default More on Australia's helmet law propaganda.

On Thu, 21 Feb 2019 12:13:29 -0500, Frank Krygowski wrote:

On 2/21/2019 4:24 AM, news18 wrote:
On Thu, 21 Feb 2019 11:33:58 +1100, James wrote:

Not sure if I mentioned this, but Professor Raphael Grzebieta has said
in a media release that in their as yet unpublished paper, they intend
to discredit the prior research into the health benefits of regular
cycling.

So much for the professor and his colleagues keeping an open mind,
remaining objective and following the science!


Speaking of "discrediting", has the data they collected been provided
for analysis?


Perhaps the classic regarding helmet data being provided for analysis:
When Thompson & Rivara first published their infamous helmet promoting
"85% benefit" paper in 1989, Dr. Dorothy Robinson asked for their data
set. (She used to post here, BTW.) She's a PhD statistician and
researcher in Australia.


Found her. Thanks.

Anyway, she was able to show that T&R's own data and techniques could be
used to "prove" that helmets prevented 75% of serious leg injuries.


I haven't found that one, but I've found another related.
http://www.cycle-helmets.com/robinson-bmj.pdf


For those who don't grasp the significance: She was really proving that
T&R's entire approach was faulty. Their "case" and "control" groups were
far from equivalent in matters other than helmet use. And in fact,
helmeted cyclists (mostly kids at that time) were seven times more
likely than non-helmeted ones to show up at ER.

Thompson & Rivara did not take kindly to her rebuttals. They never again
allowed her access to their data.


Lol, so definitely non-reproducible.

Seems the fight isn't entirely lost.
http://www.cycle-helmets.com/




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  #12  
Old February 22nd 19, 08:20 AM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
news18
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Posts: 1,131
Default More on Australia's helmet law propaganda.

On Thu, 21 Feb 2019 14:12:12 -0800, Andre Jute wrote:

On Thursday, February 21, 2019 at 5:13:35 PM UTC, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Thompson & Rivara did not take kindly to her rebuttals. They never
again allowed her access to their data.


If it is true -- give us an independent reference to their refusal,
Franki-boy -- that Thompson & Rivara deny other researcher their raw
data,


Lol, all this life and you still can not read what was written.


  #13  
Old February 22nd 19, 06:02 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
[email protected]
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Posts: 1,261
Default More on Australia's helmet law propaganda.

On Thursday, February 21, 2019 at 2:12:14 PM UTC-8, Andre Jute wrote:
On Thursday, February 21, 2019 at 5:13:35 PM UTC, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Thompson & Rivara did not take kindly to her rebuttals. They never again
allowed her access to their data.


If it is true -- give us an independent reference to their refusal, Franki-boy -- that Thompson & Rivara deny other researcher their raw data, plus a comprehensible description of any manipulation of the data to arrive at their published set, then any paper on which they do so falls. because it is logical to assume that there is something wrong with their work, and that they know it. It is to avoid this suspicion that journals of scientific record demand to have the raw data on file before they publish the article analysing the data, and also that the data be made available.

There has been a case recently that is notorious around the world of not just a researcher who refused to provide the raw data, but a whole subclass of researchers, who then brought an entire branch of science dependent on statistical analysis into deep, deep disrepute when their "adjustments" were exposed as self-serving lies, and the reason they obstructed legitimate freedom of information requests. The researcher was Michael Mann, the subbranch of a scientific field was dendrochronology, and the field that was damaged by Mann's now disgraced "hockey stick" was climate studies -- more specifically, worthless climate alarmism.

Andre Jute
There are codes of practice for a very good reason. They are for the self-protection of decent professionals.


Ms. Robinson mentioned that she could not get later datasets if memory serves.

But that doesn't change the fact that you cannot correct for confounding factors such as those most likely to be involved in accidents are NOT experienced sports riders but those that ride on the wrong side of the road with cruiser-type bikes in poor mechanical conditions. ER's do NOT make any such judgements and can only report "with and without" helmets. None of the research I've ever seen make the slightest sense with carefully analyzed. They are ALL heavily biased one way or the other. I seem to have made the only comparison that was totally neutral.

I saw that motorcycle safety helmets were effective ONLY on tracks and assumed that this safety would show up in far more effectiveness of bicycle helmets because of the reduced speed. My analysis was quite a surprise to me.

I recently tried extending the ratio of bicycle deaths vs. pedestrian deaths and it appears to hold the same ratios. So helmets as we know have not changed and pedestrians haven't improved their judgements.
  #14  
Old February 22nd 19, 10:49 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
SMS
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Posts: 9,477
Default More on Australia's helmet law propaganda.

On 2/20/2019 4:33 PM, James wrote:

snip

“There are numerous claims that the benefits of cycling far outweigh the
‘disbenefit’ of introducing mandatory helmet laws,” Professor Grzebieta
says. “We are highly sceptical of this claim and suspect poor
assumptions are being made in the scientific methodology.”"


LOL, the claims of reduced cycling numbers because of the introduction
of an MHL never had any scientific methodology to be skeptical of, so
while the professor is correct in being "highly sceptical" and being
suspect of "poor of assumptions," he is incorrect in stating that there
was a scientific methodology behind this claim in the first place.

The last odd propaganda I recall regarding Australia was that following
the introduction of an MHL cycling rates increased at a slower rate than
population increased and the existence of an MHL was cited as the
reason. Of course this is absurd. Cycling rates go up and down for all
sorts of reasons including transit infrastructure, cycling
infrastructure, weather, economic changes, etc.

The real question is whether or not the state should be dictating the
level of risky behavior that is acceptable. In a country with national
health care the state does have an interest. Four U.S. states allow
motorcyclists to not wear helmets if they provide proof of medical
insurance at a certain level. For cycling, while the percentages are
high when looking at injuries and fatalities of helmeted versus
non-helmeted cyclists, the raw numbers show a pretty small difference.
That study looked at 1990 to 2018, and for 29 years the reduction in
fatalities, if the estimate is correct, was about 46 per year.

This is the time that someone chimes in that there are more deaths
caused by obesity due to an MHL encouraging former cyclists to stay at
home watching television and eating junk food, though of course a) there
is absolutely no evidence that an MHL reduces cycling levels, and b)
there is no evidence that if someone did give up cycling that they would
adopt an unhealthy lifestyle.

I often see complaints about the large number of unhelmeted cyclists
using corporate bicycles in my city, home to a very large fruit company,
where I am currently the mayor. One complaint is that all those
unhelmeted riders set a bad example to young people who are required to
wear helmets (one of the fruit company's campuses is adjacent to a
middle school). The optics of explaining that while helmets are a good
idea, requiring them for adults is probably not a good idea, are difficult.

Wow.* I've written to the university research integrity unit, as have
numerous others.


Right.
  #15  
Old February 23rd 19, 10:04 AM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Andre Jute[_2_]
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Posts: 10,422
Default More on Australia's helmet law propaganda.

On Friday, February 22, 2019 at 5:02:52 PM UTC, wrote:
On Thursday, February 21, 2019 at 2:12:14 PM UTC-8, Andre Jute wrote:
On Thursday, February 21, 2019 at 5:13:35 PM UTC, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Thompson & Rivara did not take kindly to her rebuttals. They never again
allowed her access to their data.


If it is true -- give us an independent reference to their refusal, Franki-boy -- that Thompson & Rivara deny other researcher their raw data, plus a comprehensible description of any manipulation of the data to arrive at their published set, then any paper on which they do so falls. because it is logical to assume that there is something wrong with their work, and that they know it. It is to avoid this suspicion that journals of scientific record demand to have the raw data on file before they publish the article analysing the data, and also that the data be made available.

There has been a case recently that is notorious around the world of not just a researcher who refused to provide the raw data, but a whole subclass of researchers, who then brought an entire branch of science dependent on statistical analysis into deep, deep disrepute when their "adjustments" were exposed as self-serving lies, and the reason they obstructed legitimate freedom of information requests. The researcher was Michael Mann, the subbranch of a scientific field was dendrochronology, and the field that was damaged by Mann's now disgraced "hockey stick" was climate studies -- more specifically, worthless climate alarmism.

Andre Jute
There are codes of practice for a very good reason. They are for the self-protection of decent professionals.


Ms. Robinson mentioned that she could not get later datasets if memory serves.

But that doesn't change the fact that you cannot correct for confounding factors such as those most likely to be involved in accidents are NOT experienced sports riders but those that ride on the wrong side of the road with cruiser-type bikes in poor mechanical conditions. ER's do NOT make any such judgements and can only report "with and without" helmets. None of the research I've ever seen make the slightest sense with carefully analyzed. They are ALL heavily biased one way or the other. I seem to have made the only comparison that was totally neutral.

I saw that motorcycle safety helmets were effective ONLY on tracks and assumed that this safety would show up in far more effectiveness of bicycle helmets because of the reduced speed. My analysis was quite a surprise to me..

I recently tried extending the ratio of bicycle deaths vs. pedestrian deaths and it appears to hold the same ratios. So helmets as we know have not changed and pedestrians haven't improved their judgements.


The problem with this sort of mickey mouse research -- very low sample numbers, all respondents (basically hospital staff and police) professionally and often emotionally involved and biased -- is that every time you add a balancing factor, like you're trying to do, you cut a third or even a half from the confidence anyone can have in your research. This isn't a mathematical matter, but something I learned in doing small scale studies (focus groups are a prime example -- the answer you get depends on which associate you appoint to do the study) when the client was in too much of a hurry to wait for the results of a properly structured study; you're taking your career in your hands every time you agree to such a study. There is absolutely no reason academics or medicos should do better in their one study every year or every several years than commercial people who do a hundred or two hundred such studies -- and better and bigger (at one stage I controlled over $160m if research funds, which made us bigger than the census in most countries) -- and who lose a plush job if they screw up and therefore have every incentive to agree only to very large, properly structured studies where the pure size is 95% likely to give you a true answer unless you ask stupid questions -- but that means a structured sample of at least 3000 which certainly will cost more than the departmental budget at the universities where these people who do the small helmet studies work. (This is quite aside from the difficulties of even finding 3000 cyclists -- and associated control groups -- geographically and socio-economically and racially representative of the universe you're trying to study, and observing them for at least four seasons. I might have considered this as a challenge in my twenties but by the time I was thirty I would have laughed hollowly and said, "Try the guys across the street.")

This is why I keep referring to that NY study: it wasn't a sample, it comprised the complete and very substantial universe of cyclists who landed up at AE over a number of years, and were counted from the admission records later, which instantly eliminates all the uncertainties of the mickey mouse studies and raises the level of confidence to interstellar; oh, and it wasn't primarily a helmet study but a road planning study, so the usual complaints about emotional bias don't apply. That is also why the Anti-Helmet Zealots resolutely refuse to discuss the New York results, which point very strongly to the efficacy of helmets.

Andre Jute
Economists and psychologists are just statisticians with more class and gift of the gab than mere technical mathematicians
 




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