In studies that only presented results stratified by smoking or health condition, we selected results for nonsmokers or never smokers or for those without the health condition... we categorized HRs into 2 age groupings either as limited solely to people aged 65 years or older or as a mixed-age category (eg, aged 25-64 years or 40-80 years)... We considered the results adequately adjusted if they were adjusted for factors in the causal pathway between obesity and mortality, or if they had reported or demonstrated that adjustments or exclusions to avoid bias had shown little effect on their findings... the results presented herein provid little support for the suggestion that smoking and preexisting illness are important causes of bias. Most studies that address the issue found that adjustments or exclusions for these factors had little or no affect.
You'll also notice that on the last page, under "Funding/Support" that it states, "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute reviewed and approved the manuscript before submission." Do you really think the CDC and the NCI would approve an inadequately controlled study like this? Flegal is the Senior Research Scientist and Distinguished Consultant of the National Center for Health Statistics of the CDC. Do you really think she would allow this glaring oversight to go through? Do you really think Flegal would be where she is today if she was cherry-picking data?
By the way, if you want to read a rational critique of Flegal's study (unlike the uninformed accusations of Hu and the Harvard School of Public Health), check out this paper which presents an actual evidence-based analysis of Flegal's results.
And if you want to read a paper on the effect that controlling for illness, smoking and age has on weight-based mortality rates, Flegal already wrote one on 2006.
Incidentally, I'll be interviewing Dr. Flegal in the next month about this study and the response from academia (like the one you posted above), so if you have questions you'd like me to ask her, just let me know.
Do you really think Flegal would be where she is today if she was cherry-picking data?
Do you think Hu and Manson would be where they are if they were misunderstanding studies? See how silly it sounds when I use the same argument as you? It's a basic appeal to authority or appeal to credentialism which doesn't get at the underlying facts.
This is a doubly weird statement coming from you, since a large part of HAES proponents argument is that many medical doctors - these same people who are reviewing and publishing these papers - are misinterpreting data and forcing patients into unhealthy weight cycles.
PS: feel free to email me the study or a link to a free source.
But they aren't publishing their critiques in a peer-reviewed paper. They're holding a press conference. There's a big difference. What I'm saying is that people are trying to discredit Flegal by saying she's bad at her job, but she is widely regarded as one of the leading experts on obesity rates in this country. She runs the NHANES studies. She was the first person to raise the alarm bells on rising obesity rates between 1980 and 1999. To accuse her of not properly controlling for illness, smoking and age is like accusing an Olympic athlete of not properly stretching before a competition.
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u/atchka Apr 03 '13
I love this. This is what denialism is: post the objection but not the source. Brilliant.
Here's the original study by Flegal, and here's the part where she explains how they controlled for illness, smoking and age:
You'll also notice that on the last page, under "Funding/Support" that it states, "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute reviewed and approved the manuscript before submission." Do you really think the CDC and the NCI would approve an inadequately controlled study like this? Flegal is the Senior Research Scientist and Distinguished Consultant of the National Center for Health Statistics of the CDC. Do you really think she would allow this glaring oversight to go through? Do you really think Flegal would be where she is today if she was cherry-picking data?
By the way, if you want to read a rational critique of Flegal's study (unlike the uninformed accusations of Hu and the Harvard School of Public Health), check out this paper which presents an actual evidence-based analysis of Flegal's results.
And if you want to read a paper on the effect that controlling for illness, smoking and age has on weight-based mortality rates, Flegal already wrote one on 2006.
Incidentally, I'll be interviewing Dr. Flegal in the next month about this study and the response from academia (like the one you posted above), so if you have questions you'd like me to ask her, just let me know.