Does public health care pay for your head injuries?

I received many not quite grown-up, knee-jerk reactions to my post
about the fact practically all published doctors from around the
world enthusiastically support the wearing of helmets.

Go here.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed
Enter this.
"Head injury" bicycle helmet

None of the parts of the summaries I quoted mentioned mandatory
helmet law. I didn't say anything about mandatory helmet law, but
that idea probably is why all of the flailing at me.

I think you all are afraid that the taxpayer is going to force some
responsibility on your head in exchange for public health care.

Whatever you think about the law, you should provide a good example
for children anyway, too many of whom get seriously injured for not
wearing a bicycle helmet.

But in fact I couldn't care less either way, contrary to what your
attitudes imagine.

On 26/11/04 11:59 am, in article ,
"John Doe" wrote:

I received many not quite grown-up, knee-jerk reactions to my post
about the fact practically all published doctors from around the
world enthusiastically support the wearing of helmets.

The 'not quite grown-up' meaning 'asked me to read and justify papers which
have been shown to contain methodological errors, rather than just quoting
the abstracts (soundbites)'

Many in this group 1. are qualified scientists competent to evaluate
methodology and analyse data.
2. have actually read the papers rather than just the abstracts
3. are willing to entertain rational debate rather than 'x says so so it
must be true' teh 'appeal to authority' technique in debating only works if
the audience are unqualified. When you have an audience containing
scientists, medical doctors (some of whom are senior A & E personnel) and
similarly qualified people, it doesn't wash.


Go here.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed
Enter this.
"Head injury" bicycle helmet

None of the parts of the summaries I quoted mentioned mandatory
helmet law. I didn't say anything about mandatory helmet law, but
that idea probably is why all of the flailing at me.

No. The rat that smells is that many of these studies enthusiastically
promote helmet wearing by postulating that XX% of head injuries would be
saved if all cyclists wore helmets. MHL have performed the large scale
experiment and guess what? these postulated benefits have *never*
materialised.

I think you all are afraid that the taxpayer is going to force some
responsibility on your head in exchange for public health care.

Yup, about the time they force the responsibility to take reasonable
exercise and eat a reasonable diet on everyone. Cycling without a helmet is
a net saving in public health costs. Compared to not cycling at all.

Whatever you think about the law, you should provide a good example
for children anyway, too many of whom get seriously injured for not
wearing a bicycle helmet.

How many? Justify your statement.

But in fact I couldn't care less either way, contrary to what your
attitudes imagine.

So you make sweeping 'you should' type statements and then say you don't
care?

Either you are trolling or just bluster and no brain.

...d

John Doe wrote:

Whatever you think about the law, you should provide a good example
for children anyway,

I do provide a good example to children. I show them that a non-polluting,
sustainable form of transport is not only practical, but beneficial to my
health. I show them that travel independence should not automatically be
equated only with petrol-guzzling death machines. I also show them that
cycling is safe enough for me not to bother with wearing a meringue on my
head.

too many of whom get seriously injured for not
wearing a bicycle helmet.

References? And I don't mean huge, meaningles lists of abstracts, I mean
particular figures.

Rob

John Doe wrote:
I received many not quite grown-up, knee-jerk reactions to my post
about the fact practically all published doctors from around the
world enthusiastically support the wearing of helmets.

Except the ones that don't, and among the ones that do most are simply
making a "common sense" assumption. I used to wear a helmet regularly
based on a similar assumption, I stopped after I'd done a bit of research.
Being a qualified first aider I have to retrain every 3 years, and every
time I do the advice on recovery position and CPR has changed a bit,
because what was clearly the case for best care before turned out not to
be quite so clear with re-evaluation. Medical opinion is not as static
and unanimous as you like to think.

None of the parts of the summaries I quoted mentioned mandatory
helmet law.

No, most of them mention substantial improvements in protection based on
case/control studies. Countries which have passed MHLs have a perfect
point in their recorded data to test that hypothesis of substantially
better protection for real, as you have a sharp increase in helmet
wearing rates over a short space of time, so if the studies you quote
are really on the money then the increase in wearing rates should
correlate with a sharp decrease in serious head injury rates, but this
has /never/ happened anywhere it's been assessed. Which (a) you would
know if your research had gone a bit deeper and (b) leads to a
conclusion that the case/control studies are flawed, and often the flaws
are highly evident if you read the papers rather than just the
conclusions. Again, do you have problems with TRT's '89 paper
implicitly concluding 75% of *leg* injuries saved by helmets? You
wouldn't even know it does that if you didn't do any reading outside of
the summaries, though it's points like that which you've glossed over or
missed altogether that mark out the very real flaws in the papers you're
taking as Gospel Truth.

I think you all are afraid that the taxpayer is going to force some
responsibility on your head in exchange for public health care.

I think you haven't actually done very much real research, because if
you had you'd find that cycling is sufficiently good for health that
cyclists on average live longer and require less treatment to do so, so
cost the taxpayer less money than drivers. And that has been the case
since before cycle helmets existed.

Whatever you think about the law, you should provide a good example
for children anyway, too many of whom get seriously injured for not
wearing a bicycle helmet.

But there is no evidence to say that is so. Far more kids wear cycle
helmets in the UK and N. America than they do in NL and Denmark, yet the
serious head injury rates in NL and Denmark are much lower. Please
explain from your research how the wearing of the helmets outside of
Denmark and NL accounts for this.

But in fact I couldn't care less either way, contrary to what your
attitudes imagine.

Then /you're/ the troll. Yup, that makes sense, far more so than your
conclusions and arguments.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

John Doe wrote:


Whatever you think about the law, you should provide a good example
for children anyway, too many of whom get seriously injured for not
wearing a bicycle helmet


WHich law ?

But in fact I couldn't care less either way, contrary to what your
attitudes imagine.


Neither could I. Kill file meet John Doe.

David Martin wrote:
"John Doe" wrote:

I received many not quite grown-up, knee-jerk reactions to my
post about the fact practically all published doctors from around
the world enthusiastically support the wearing of helmets.

The 'not quite grown-up' meaning 'asked me to read and justify
papers which have been shown to contain methodological errors,
rather than just quoting the abstracts (soundbites)'

An abstract is not a soundbite, troll. Besides, I referred everyone
to the source.

I did not see anyone post a link to the acknowledgment of that
alleged error. There was a vague reference to it being somewhere on
the injury prevention web site, who knows where. That's the way you
do it, all talk.

Then there is the not quite grown-up vague reference to some study
which showed helmets reduced leg injuries. In what medical journal
is it published? In what medical journal is the summary published?
Apparently that is all talk too.

Trying to substantiate your claims by referring me to
cyclehelmets.org is a joke in my opinion.

Many in this group 1. are qualified scientists competent to
evaluate methodology and analyse data.

True or not, apparently nobody cares what the allegedly qualified
scientists here think.

You beat your chests and call it science.

2. have actually read the papers rather than just the abstracts

That's probably why some of you started flailing at me. Some of you
might have read the summaries and were upset by the mandatory helmet
law statements.

3. are willing to entertain rational debate rather than 'x says so
so it must be true' teh 'appeal to authority' technique in debating
only works if the audience are unqualified. When you have an
audience containing scientists, medical doctors (some of whom are
senior A & E personnel) and similarly qualified people, it doesn't
wash.

There you go again. What have they had published in medical
journals? Nada, nothing, zilch. Apparently your sources are big fat
unknowns, with an opinion.

Go here.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed
Enter this.
"Head injury" bicycle helmet

None of the parts of the summaries I quoted mentioned mandatory
helmet law. I didn't say anything about mandatory helmet law, but
that idea probably is why all of the flailing at me.

No. The rat that smells is that many of these studies
enthusiastically promote helmet wearing by postulating that XX% of
head injuries would be saved if all cyclists wore helmets. MHL have
performed the large scale experiment and guess what? these
postulated benefits have *never* materialised.

That opinion is the opposite of all the summaries I read.

I think you all are afraid that the taxpayer is going to force
some responsibility on your head in exchange for public health
care.

Yup, about the time they force the responsibility to take
reasonable exercise and eat a reasonable diet on everyone.

Maybe they would if they could enforce it. I don't need anyone to
tell me to eat well.

Cycling without a helmet is a net saving in public health costs.
Compared to not cycling at all.

Whatever you think about the law, you should provide a good
example for children anyway, too many of whom get seriously
injured for not wearing a bicycle helmet.

How many? Justify your statement.

Go to the web site I linked you to and look at the summaries I
cited, troll.

But in fact I couldn't care less either way, contrary to what
your attitudes imagine.

So you make sweeping 'you should' type statements and then say you
don't care?

Either you are trolling or just bluster and no brain.

And maybe you don't need no helmet because you have a thick skull?




..d


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From: David Martin
Newsgroups: uk.rec.cycling
Subject: Does public health care pay for your head injuries?
Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 12:16:20 +0000
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No, I pay for the public health care of obese car drivers, and all their
victims.

James
--
If I have seen further than others, it is
by treading on the toes of giants.
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/julesandjames/home/

Troll.

MSeries wrote:

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From: MSeries
Newsgroups: uk.rec.cycling
Subject: Does public health care pay for your head injuries?
Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 12:59:45 +0000
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John Doe wrote:


Whatever you think about the law, you should provide a good example
for children anyway, too many of whom get seriously injured for not
wearing a bicycle helmet


WHich law ?

But in fact I couldn't care less either way, contrary to what your
attitudes imagine.


Neither could I. Kill file meet John Doe.

Troll.

Peter Clinch wrote:

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From: Peter Clinch
Newsgroups: uk.rec.cycling
Subject: Does public health care pay for your head injuries?
Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 12:39:23 +0000
Organization: University of Dundee
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John Doe wrote:
I received many not quite grown-up, knee-jerk reactions to my post
about the fact practically all published doctors from around the
world enthusiastically support the wearing of helmets.

Except the ones that don't, and among the ones that do most are simply
making a "common sense" assumption. I used to wear a helmet regularly
based on a similar assumption, I stopped after I'd done a bit of research.
Being a qualified first aider I have to retrain every 3 years, and every
time I do the advice on recovery position and CPR has changed a bit,
because what was clearly the case for best care before turned out not to
be quite so clear with re-evaluation. Medical opinion is not as static
and unanimous as you like to think.

None of the parts of the summaries I quoted mentioned mandatory
helmet law.

No, most of them mention substantial improvements in protection based on
case/control studies. Countries which have passed MHLs have a perfect
point in their recorded data to test that hypothesis of substantially
better protection for real, as you have a sharp increase in helmet
wearing rates over a short space of time, so if the studies you quote
are really on the money then the increase in wearing rates should
correlate with a sharp decrease in serious head injury rates, but this
has /never/ happened anywhere it's been assessed. Which (a) you would
know if your research had gone a bit deeper and (b) leads to a
conclusion that the case/control studies are flawed, and often the flaws
are highly evident if you read the papers rather than just the
conclusions. Again, do you have problems with TRT's '89 paper
implicitly concluding 75% of *leg* injuries saved by helmets? You
wouldn't even know it does that if you didn't do any reading outside of
the summaries, though it's points like that which you've glossed over or
missed altogether that mark out the very real flaws in the papers you're
taking as Gospel Truth.

I think you all are afraid that the taxpayer is going to force some
responsibility on your head in exchange for public health care.

I think you haven't actually done very much real research, because if
you had you'd find that cycling is sufficiently good for health that
cyclists on average live longer and require less treatment to do so, so
cost the taxpayer less money than drivers. And that has been the case
since before cycle helmets existed.

Whatever you think about the law, you should provide a good example
for children anyway, too many of whom get seriously injured for not
wearing a bicycle helmet.

But there is no evidence to say that is so. Far more kids wear cycle
helmets in the UK and N. America than they do in NL and Denmark, yet the
serious head injury rates in NL and Denmark are much lower. Please
explain from your research how the wearing of the helmets outside of
Denmark and NL accounts for this.

But in fact I couldn't care less either way, contrary to what your
attitudes imagine.

Then /you're/ the troll. Yup, that makes sense, far more so than your
conclusions and arguments.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

On 26/11/04 1:26 pm, in article ,
"John Doe" wrote:

David Martin wrote:
"John Doe" wrote:

I received many not quite grown-up, knee-jerk reactions to my
post about the fact practically all published doctors from around
the world enthusiastically support the wearing of helmets.

The 'not quite grown-up' meaning 'asked me to read and justify
papers which have been shown to contain methodological errors,
rather than just quoting the abstracts (soundbites)'

An abstract is not a soundbite, troll. Besides, I referred everyone
to the source.

AN abstract is a soundbite. It is a much abbreviated statement attempting to
convey an overall impression of a much larger body of work.

I did not see anyone post a link to the acknowledgment of that
alleged error. There was a vague reference to it being somewhere on
the injury prevention web site, who knows where. That's the way you
do it, all talk.

Reference to the letters page of the injury prevention web site. Obviously
you want to be spoon fed. Had you actually read the article you would no
doubt have found the same error.


Then there is the not quite grown-up vague reference to some study
which showed helmets reduced leg injuries. In what medical journal
is it published? In what medical journal is the summary published?
Apparently that is all talk too.

Dorothy Robinson in AAP (I think) reanalysed the same data T&R used for
their study which claims to show 85% protection from head injuries, using
the T&R methodology and it shows an as convincing protection of 75% of leg
injuries.


Trying to substantiate your claims by referring me to
cyclehelmets.org is a joke in my opinion.

Your opinion is a bit like your research skills, not worth a lot. The
cyclehelmets.org site has critiques and references, rather than abbreviated
excerpts of abstracts. There, peopel have actually taken the time to read
and understand the studies.


Many in this group 1. are qualified scientists competent to
evaluate methodology and analyse data.

True or not, apparently nobody cares what the allegedly qualified
scientists here think.

You beat your chests and call it science.

So we have had the 'proof by appeal to authority' and now we get the 'proof
by repeated assertion'. We do care what the authors think, so we read the
papers (not just the abstracts) to find out why. Science should be
replicable and open to question. Good science stands up under scrutiny.
Obviously you have either a) complete faith in the peer review process and
are therefore a naive foot, or b) have made up your mind and do not want to
consider alternatives, in which case you are a troll. In the absence of
actually reading the papers, any opinion you have is worthless.


2. have actually read the papers rather than just the abstracts

That's probably why some of you started flailing at me. Some of you
might have read the summaries and were upset by the mandatory helmet
law statements.

WHat MHL statements? The only flailing was because you have clearly NOT read
the papers, nor tried to find follow up work that cites those studies. In
doing so you would have found the critiques and exposure of methodological
errors.

3. are willing to entertain rational debate rather than 'x says so
so it must be true' teh 'appeal to authority' technique in debating
only works if the audience are unqualified. When you have an
audience containing scientists, medical doctors (some of whom are
senior A & E personnel) and similarly qualified people, it doesn't
wash.

There you go again. What have they had published in medical
journals? Nada, nothing, zilch. Apparently your sources are big fat
unknowns, with an opinion.

I can only speak for myself. I have published (and continue to publish) in
top rank scientific journals, many of which are household names.

Go here.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed
Enter this.
"Head injury" bicycle helmet

None of the parts of the summaries I quoted mentioned mandatory
helmet law. I didn't say anything about mandatory helmet law, but
that idea probably is why all of the flailing at me.

No. The rat that smells is that many of these studies
enthusiastically promote helmet wearing by postulating that XX% of
head injuries would be saved if all cyclists wore helmets. MHL have
performed the large scale experiment and guess what? these
postulated benefits have *never* materialised.

That opinion is the opposite of all the summaries I read.

Again you seem unable or unwilling to read the full paper. Answer just one
question.

If helemts are so effective as you would suggest based on a cursory scanning
of abstracts, why are there no observable changes in HI rate amongst
cyclists when helmet wearing rates hace increased dramatically over a short
period of time?

Or maybe you can find some studies that show this. If you can we'd be
pleased to see them (they'd be a first, and have eluded both the department
of transport and the Scottish Executive)


I think you all are afraid that the taxpayer is going to force
some responsibility on your head in exchange for public health
care.

Yup, about the time they force the responsibility to take
reasonable exercise and eat a reasonable diet on everyone.

Maybe they would if they could enforce it. I don't need anyone to
tell me to eat well.

Liekwise, I don't need anyone to tell me how to avoid injury on a bike.

Cycling without a helmet is a net saving in public health costs.
Compared to not cycling at all.

Whatever you think about the law, you should provide a good
example for children anyway, too many of whom get seriously
injured for not wearing a bicycle helmet.

How many? Justify your statement.

Go to the web site I linked you to and look at the summaries I
cited, troll.

No. You made the statement, quote the figures. It is up to you to support
your arguement. How many children have been injured for not wearing a
helmet?


But in fact I couldn't care less either way, contrary to what
your attitudes imagine.

So you make sweeping 'you should' type statements and then say you
don't care?

Either you are trolling or just bluster and no brain.

And maybe you don't need no helmet because you have a thick skull?

I'm quite willing to indulge in educated debate. Unfortunately you seem to
have reached the limit of your academic abilities and have resorted to name
calling.

...d