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published helmet research - not troll



 
 
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  #11  
Old June 18th 04, 11:39 PM
Shayne Wissler
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Default published helmet research - not troll


"Steven Bornfeld" wrote in message
...


Shayne Wissler wrote:
"John Forrest Tomlinson" wrote in message
...


Now what evidence do you have about helmets protecting against dented
skulls or brain injuries?



I have an idea for an experiment. Go outside and have someone hold a

brick
about 2 feet over your bare head and have him drop it. Observe the pain

and
damage (assuming you're still conscious). Then try the same experiment

on
your friend, but have him wear a cycling helmet. If he laughs at you,

you
may be able to infer from this, experimentally, that he thought it was

not
necessary to run the experiment to know that you would end up with a

damaged
head and he wouldn't.

If you are unable to apply the knowledge gained from this experiment to
real-life, I would submit that it's not more experiments that you're
actually in need of.


Shayne Wissler


Well, that's the problem, isn't it? Tough to run a controlled study of
this type in real-life conditions.


It's a mistake to think that you need a real-life trial in order to make
valid inferences from the experiments. Even a thought experiment (as the one
I gave above) is sufficient to know that helmets will protect your head to
an important degree.

But I agree with Frank that it should be left up to the individual to
decide--I don't wear my helmet all of the time. (Although perhaps I should:
my worst injury on the bike during the past year was less than a mile from
my house when I was just on a little ride around the block. I was sprinting
up the street and my foot came out of the pedal.)


Shayne Wissler


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  #12  
Old June 18th 04, 11:41 PM
Shayne Wissler
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Default published helmet research - not troll


"John Forrest Tomlinson" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 22:16:19 GMT, "Shayne Wissler"
wrote:


"John Forrest Tomlinson" wrote in message
.. .

Now what evidence do you have about helmets protecting against dented
skulls or brain injuries?


I have an idea for an experiment.


That's your evidence? That's speculation.


Let me guess. You must be a follower of Hume.

On the contrary, the thought experiment I gave is perfectly valid evidence,
from which a reasonable person would infer that some fraction of real-life
accidents would result in a lesser injury if a helmet were worn.


Shayne Wissler


  #13  
Old June 18th 04, 11:43 PM
DRS
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Default published helmet research - not troll

"Steven Bornfeld" wrote in message


[...]

I've heard the same arguments from people who don't wear seatbelts in
cars. I thought they made what could be valid points--until I spent a
year covering head/neck trauma during my residency.


The difference is empirically obvious. I live in the first state in the
world that made seatbelt use compulsory (Victoria, Australia). Not only did
the fatality rate immediately plummet but the rate of spinal injuries
dropped 75% in the first year. There is no such corresponding data for
bicycle helmets.

--

A: Top-posters.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on Usenet?


  #14  
Old June 19th 04, 12:07 AM
Jay Beattie
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Default published helmet research - not troll


"Frank Krygowski" wrote in message
...
CowPunk wrote:


This whole helmet discussion reminds of my pesticide

chemistry
class when my prof. would tell the class "but the LD50 is ...
blah, blah, blah.", but never took into account that while

maybe
it takes a lot of whatever chemical to kill you, no one

really
knows how much it takes to cause cancer, nerve damage,
brain damage, loss of eyesight, etc....


The discussion also reminds me of a class where everyone has a

strong
opinion, but nobody does the homework! ;-)


The same thing holds true for this discussion. You're

looking
at FATALITIES. What about the accidents where a helmet
prevented brain injury? It's not something that can be

answered
or tested easily....


In another post, I mentioned a scientific study and an informal

newpaper
article that both dealt with injuries, as opposed to

fatalities. The
study was published as: "Trends in Cycle Injury in New Zealand

under
Voluntary Helmet Use" by Scuffham & Langley, Accident Analysis

and
Prevention, Vol. 29, No. 1, pp. 1-9, 1997.

Briefly: New Zealand was getting ready to make it illegal for

anyone of
any age anywhere in the country to ride a bike without a

helmet. As a
run-up, they promoted the heck out of helmets. Helmet use

suddenly
surged in just a few years, from about 20% to over 80% for at

least some
age groups.

The authors figured this was a great opportunity to show the

benefit of
helmets. The checked medical records of cyclists admitted to

all the
major hospitals. They were looking for the corresponding drop

in the
percentage admitted due to head injury (as opposed to, say,

broken legs,
internal injuries, etc.)

They found no detectable difference at all. Zero. From the

medical
data, it was impossible to tell anyone had put on a helmet.

The New York Times did an article on the same issue: "A

Bicycling
Mystery: Head Injuries Piling Up."

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1028.html


And the New York Times wrote on May 1, 2001 that:

"A report last summer on "The Future of Children" noted that 35
states lacked bicycle helmet laws, even though "research has
shown that bicycle helmets are 85 percent effective at reducing
head injuries." A study in Queensland, Australia, of bicycle
accidents among children showed that wearing a helmet reduced the
risk of loss of consciousness from a head injury by 86 percent.

Even preschoolers who do not ride in traffic and toddlers on
tricycles need head protection "whenever and wherever they are
cycling," insists Dr. Elizabeth C. Powell of Children's Memorial
Hospital in Chicago. Dr. Powell, a specialist in pediatric
emergency medicine, notes that helmets can also reduce the risk
of facial injuries when a child falls off a tricycle or bicycle."

I guess it all depends on whether you live in New Zeland or
Australia. Or whether you are Rivera or Scuffham. For every
scientific study you come up with, I can find one or two that go
the other way. And in the final analysis, it really does not
matter, because we all just do what we do -- and, with minor
exception, we are all too old for the MHLs in most states. MLHs
are mostly a kid thing, and my kid wears a helmet when he is
riding or skiing -- but not when he is walking, showering, or
playing with his Legos or YuGiOh cards. Yes, I know that is
inconsistent when we look at injury patterns, but we have learned
to live with that inconsistency. -- Jay Beattie.




  #15  
Old June 19th 04, 12:21 AM
John Forrest Tomlinson
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Default published helmet research - not troll

On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 18:28:05 -0400, Steven Bornfeld
wrote:


Why someone would even try to suggest that helmets don't save lives
because there are no controlled studies to prove they do says more about
these people than it does about helmets.

I haven't suggest anything. I've asked questions of assumptions. It's
fine to say "I hope my helmet will protect me from brain injuries from
hitting branches when mountain biking?" Or "Id' speculate that
helmets will protect me from falling rocks and bricks that hit my
head, or accidents on a bike that approximate that."

But to go from that to "Wear a helmet because it'll save you from a
brain injury" is a big leap. If you're going to advocate that people
do something like wear helmets, at least you could be honest about the
degree of speculation involved. And when you consider that riding a
bike w/o a helmet is probably better for your health than not riding
at all, honesty and recognition of uncertainty is even more important.
To do otherwise is either intellectually lazy or unethical.

JT
  #16  
Old June 19th 04, 12:21 AM
Bill Z.
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Default published helmet research - not troll

(Tom Kunich) writes:

(CowPunk) wrote in message . com...

The same thing holds true for this discussion. You're looking
at FATALITIES. What about the accidents where a helmet
prevented brain injury? It's not something that can be answered
or tested easily....


That's a fair question. But ask yourself - how many brain injuries
have occurred to cyclists over the intervening 30 years. The answer is
that there are so few that they aren't even recorded. It isn't that
they don't occur, but that your chances of having similar injuries as
a pedestrian are many times greater on a statistical basis.

The statistics also show that serious head injuries aren't helped by
helmets either since the ratio of serious head injuries to fatalities
hasn't changed in the least either. Although there are some medical
sources that claim that using complicated statistical methods they can
JUST detect some help.


This is turning into a repeat of the very same discussion held 10
years ago. Go back to the archives to look if you want.

Keep in mind that serious head injuries covers a wide range of
impacts. If you make a serious injury less serious, it still gets
classified as a serious injury, and you might find it hard to
detect the fraction that drop from "serious" to "not serious" or
"prevented."


It is my OPINION that helmets make minor injuries even more minor or
even non-existant. That is a reason for ME to wear a helmet. That is
not a reason for laws that force helmets on children since it
coincidentally causes children to to ride a great deal less, causing
parents to drive their children to school making it more dangerous for
all children in the vicinity of schools.


This is not true. Children do not ride less due to helmet laws,
particularly in California, where the helmet laws are not enforced
(or rarely enforced.) If you tell a young teen to start using a
helmet when he previously didn't want to, you can expect a negative
reaction (natural rebelliousness.) Kids who started using helmets
when they started riding bicycles don't have that reaction.

Bill

--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB
  #17  
Old June 19th 04, 12:24 AM
John Forrest Tomlinson
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Default published helmet research - not troll

On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 22:41:36 GMT, "Shayne Wissler"
wrote:


"John Forrest Tomlinson" wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 22:16:19 GMT, "Shayne Wissler"
wrote:


"John Forrest Tomlinson" wrote in message
.. .

Now what evidence do you have about helmets protecting against dented
skulls or brain injuries?

I have an idea for an experiment.


That's your evidence? That's speculation.


Let me guess. You must be a follower of Hume.

On the contrary, the thought experiment I gave is perfectly valid evidence,
from which a reasonable person would infer that some fraction of real-life
accidents would result in a lesser injury if a helmet were worn.


You're making a a big assumption -- that hitting a brick is similar to
the impact people get when they hit their head on the ground (which I
would guess -- note I am acknowledging the degree of specutation I'm
making) or a tree branch (which is the object in question). I think
that assumption is wrong insofar as it relates to any sort of likely
accident on a bke. But yes, if someone is riding where they will be
hit by falling bricks, a helmet sounds helpful.

JT
  #18  
Old June 19th 04, 12:24 AM
Steven Bornfeld
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Posts: n/a
Default published helmet research - not troll



Shayne Wissler wrote:
"John Forrest Tomlinson" wrote in message
...

On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 22:16:19 GMT, "Shayne Wissler"
wrote:


"John Forrest Tomlinson" wrote in message
...


Now what evidence do you have about helmets protecting against dented
skulls or brain injuries?

I have an idea for an experiment.


That's your evidence? That's speculation.



Let me guess. You must be a follower of Hume.

On the contrary, the thought experiment I gave is perfectly valid evidence,
from which a reasonable person would infer that some fraction of real-life
accidents would result in a lesser injury if a helmet were worn.


Shayne Wissler


There is a germ of truth in the assertion that helmets won't prevent
death. This general feeling among safety experts seems to revolve
arount the assertion that serious brain injury from bicycle accidents
usually are not due to straight-on impact, but from torsional stresses
that a helmet is unable to eliminate. But this is like saying that a
seat belt shouldn't be worn because it won't save you from crushing
injury of the thorax in a head-on 60 mph crash.
Safety measures shouldn't be discarded because they are not 100% effective.

Steve




  #19  
Old June 19th 04, 12:25 AM
Shayne Wissler
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Posts: n/a
Default published helmet research - not troll


"John Forrest Tomlinson" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 22:41:36 GMT, "Shayne Wissler"
wrote:


"John Forrest Tomlinson" wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 22:16:19 GMT, "Shayne Wissler"
wrote:


"John Forrest Tomlinson" wrote in message
.. .

Now what evidence do you have about helmets protecting against

dented
skulls or brain injuries?

I have an idea for an experiment.

That's your evidence? That's speculation.


Let me guess. You must be a follower of Hume.

On the contrary, the thought experiment I gave is perfectly valid

evidence,
from which a reasonable person would infer that some fraction of

real-life
accidents would result in a lesser injury if a helmet were worn.


You're making a a big assumption -- that hitting a brick is similar to
the impact people get when they hit their head on the ground (which I
would guess -- note I am acknowledging the degree of specutation I'm
making) or a tree branch (which is the object in question). I think
that assumption is wrong insofar as it relates to any sort of likely
accident on a bke. But yes, if someone is riding where they will be
hit by falling bricks, a helmet sounds helpful.


I hesitate to say this because it amounts to pointing your nose in a
direction you obviously do not wish to look, and you can always avert your
eyes, but: Shape your "brick" like a flat peice of pavement and it is hardly
different from falling down on the pavement with your head.

He who actively engages in finding differences but is is lazy about finding
similarity is a self-made idiot.


Shayne Wissler


  #20  
Old June 19th 04, 12:36 AM
Steven Bornfeld
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Posts: n/a
Default published helmet research - not troll



DRS wrote:
"Steven Bornfeld" wrote in message


[...]


I've heard the same arguments from people who don't wear seatbelts in
cars. I thought they made what could be valid points--until I spent a
year covering head/neck trauma during my residency.



The difference is empirically obvious. I live in the first state in the
world that made seatbelt use compulsory (Victoria, Australia). Not only did
the fatality rate immediately plummet but the rate of spinal injuries
dropped 75% in the first year. There is no such corresponding data for
bicycle helmets.


The safety improvement from seat belt use that I have seen is nowhere
near that dramatic. Nevertheless, I can tell you from first hand
experience that no one involved in a car accident that I saw the whole
year (that I asked--most of them) had been wearing seat belts.
There are many studies out there--some designed better, some worse.
There is poor compliance with helmet regulations in the US where they
exist. But certainly Kunich can show studies which cast doubt on the
efficacy of helmets in preventing head injuries. There is also this:

http://www.cochrane.org/cochrane/revabstr/ab001855.htm

which reaches exactly the opposite conclusion.
In the end, people are going to believe what they want. Unfortunately,
my tax dollars are going to pay the medical expenses of those who ignore
common sense.

Steve



 




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