On Apr 11, 9:16*pm, * Still Just Me *
wrote:
On Sun, 11 Apr 2010 17:10:48 -0700, SMS
wrote:



This is true. You have to look at the big picture. Case studies report
on the actual cases, but sometimes you have to read between the lines.
Obviously those individuals whose helmets prevented and reduced injuries
to the extent that treatment by medical professionals was unnecessary
are not included in the results.

And therein lies the dilemma that those opposed to helmets don't like
to acknowledge. Even with an accurate random population survey,
analyzing whether or not an accident would have produced a head injury
that was prevented by a helmet is troublesome.

sigh This is an example of fantasy that just won't go away!

Among the papers I've cited over 30 times is Scuffham et. al.,
"Trends in Cycling Injuries in New Zealand Under Voluntary Helmet
Use," 1997, Accident Analysis and Prevention, Vol 29, No 1. I got my
copy directly from Scuffham, but you can get one from the library.

Once again: Scuffham and his fellow pro-helmet researchers tracked
down essentially every hospital record of a hospitalized cyclist in
the entire country for well over 10 years. That included a time
period when helmet wearing rose from near zero to (for kids) about
90%. Almost all of that jump occurred in a period of less than three
years.

Their plan was simple: From the hospital records, determine the
percentage hospitalized due to head injury. Of course, they
anticipated seeing that percentage drop sharply when helmet use rose
sharply.

Why would it drop sharply? Read the following paragraph slowly,
TWICE. Then think about it:

_If_ helmets kept people from showing up in the hospital, it would be
detected by the reduction in percentage hospitalized due to head
injury. Seriously - Isn't that clear?

If that's not clear, read it again. Ask for help. I can give
numerical examples.

But back to the study: unfortunately for helmet promotion, they found
no such thing. They go into great detail in the paper about the many
math tricks they tried to find evidence of those missing head
injuries. No matter. Nothing they did could find any evidence of
cyclists protected from hospitalization by their helmets.

Again, for emphasis: The helmets kept NOBODY out of the hospital.

If you don't believe this interpretation of the paper - that is, if
you pretend I'm misrepresenting what they did and learned, PLEASE go
to your librarian and ask to get a copy. Read it, look at the very
clear graphs, and come back here and discuss it.

Or at _least_ drop that Scharfian line of "reasoning," claiming
phantom, undetectable benefits. They don't exist.

- Frank Krygowski