|
medpundit |
||
 |
 |
|
Wednesday, November 24, 2004A widely reported government study that said obesity was about to overtake smoking as the No. 1 cause of death in the United States contained statistical errors and may have overstated the problem, health officials acknowledged Tuesday. ...The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in March in a study co-authored by its director, Julie Gerberding, that a poor diet and physical inactivity were responsible for 400,000 deaths in 2000, a 33 percent jump from 1990. ....Although CDC officials declined to specify the corrected number of deaths, the Wall Street Journal reported that the agency may have overstated the number by 80,000, representing an increase of less than 10 percent from 1990 to 2000. The errors were first reported by the Journal on Tuesday. The mistakes consisted of simple mathematical errors, such as including total deaths from the wrong year, the newspaper reported. Ideologies and pet theories can be just as blinding to objectivity as profit motive. posted by Sydney on 11/24/2004 07:26:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
|
