is child. leuk. increasing?

[Jan Hollan <jhollan@amper....muni.cz>]

Dear Ken,

thank you for a prompt and detailed answer, it gave me a lot better
overview of the problem.

> It is possible that there may be a real on-going
> increase but the crucial point is that, if this does exist, it is at a
> very low rate and there is no justification for alarmist claims.

I got this impression as well (an oncologist from Brno, Jaroslav Sterba,
wrote me in this sense too).

> As regards the specific paper by Milham and Ossiander, I am indeed
> familiar with this paper. A crucial flaw in the paper is its failure to
> acknowledge that the hypotheses of Kinlen and Greaves, cited but
> dismissed in the paper, would predict exactly the phenomenon described
> by Milham. The rural locations were late to achieve electrification
> because they were isolated (immunological isolation in infancy) and,
> unless we are to understand the locals installed their own electrical
> facilities, there will have been an influx of migrant workers bringing
> novel infections. In the absence of evidence in his paper that he has
> seriously considered these potential confounders, Milham's paper cannot
> be regarded as strong evidence.

Yes, it's no strong evidence that it was electricity what caused the
increase. But doesn't it remain a (strong?) evidence that there had been
an increase, regardless of its cause(s)? I admit that the amount of
increase cannot be said accurately, as perhaps the possibility of
correctly diagnosing leukaemia as a death cause was worse in the
non-electrified sites. But comparing different US sites might be more
reliable than than comparing different decades and provide an answer to
the question, if there was any increase at all.

> International parallels in leukaemia and diabetes epidemiology. Arch Dis
> Child. 2004 Jan;89(1):54-6.  PMID: 14709508

Searching for its availability I've found that a similar Leeds team
had a poster at day 1 of the Childhood Leukaemia conf., on Yorkshire, with
a bit different conclusions
 (Detecting small area similarities in the epidemiology of childhood
  acute lymphoblastic leukaemia and type 1 diabetes: a Bayesian approach
          - Richard G Feltbower, Samuel OM Manda et al
 http://www.leukaemiaconference.org/programme/posters/day1-feltbower1.pdf
 -- the abstract seems to be the poster itself, as I remember it).

I got an impression that the Fallon cluster is still stronger argument.

> It is quite likely, based on known biological
> features that it may not be possible to reduce the incidence; the major
> exception to this assumption would be if, as Professor Kinlen has
> hypothesized, there is one infection responsible for triggering most or
> all cases, in which case vaccination might be feasible.

I came to the ChL conference as an outsider, being involved just in
studying various aspects of missing nighttime darkness. I got an opinion
that 50 Hz EMF should not be ignored, if there is an easy possibility to
keep their amplitude below some 10^-7 tesla (before that, I was sceptical,
as a physicist, that it deserves any attention). Of course, the melatonin
link is much stronger for light than for another EMR.

> While not minimizing the significance of every single case to the
> affected family, it must be remembered that childhood leukaemia is,
> thankfully, a rare disease. This means that expending huge resources on
> unproven suspected risk factors (such as resiting power facilities or
> phone masts), may use up money which would save many more children from
> harm if used, for example, to reduce the much greater road traffic death
> and injury toll.

I agree completely. I'd just add, if there exists a possibility that
cancer incidence (even if it would not concern ALL) can be diminished by
reducing the exposure to light at night (restoring melatonin production
period and natural levels this way), it should be tried too, as the needed
measures are mostly no-regret ones.

A procedural question finally: could I put your letter (with obscured
phones and e-mail) into my very heterogeneous
  http://amper.ped.muni.cz/jenik/letters/public/
 folder? You wrote me a helpful information, extending that at the lrf
site. Then I could put a layman comment to the Milham's lecture at the ChL
site, hyper-referencing both of them.

with best regards,
 jenik hollan,
 http://www.astro.cz/darksky

PS.
 I had a non-leukaemia poster on the conference, which had been not listed
in the programme, but it's listed in the discussion forum
already: Disturbances by light at night
   http://www.leukaemiaconference.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=117

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                                Jan Hollan
              N. Copernicus Observatory and Planetarium in Brno
Kraví hora 2, CZ - 616 00 Brno                        +420 5 41 32 12 87

                                   home:
Lipová 19, 602 00 Brno                                     5 43 23 90 96

               volunteer of the Ecological counselling Veronica
Panská 9, 602 00 Brno, Czechia                  fax:  +420 5 42 21 05 61

e-mail: hollan@ped....cz             http://astro.sci.muni.cz/pub/hollan
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