'Flawed design' for $140 MIL Agent Orange Study?
September 26, 2006 at 7:05 PM
by BlogMaster
The Greenville NewsBy Clark Brooks
STAFF WRITER
Tollerud, a professor of public health at the University of Louisville, chaired the IOM panel that recently recommended the Ranch Hand data and specimens be saved for study outside the Air Force.
He briefed the Ranch Hand advisory committee during a meeting in February. He called the biological specimens accumulated over 25 years "a trove of valuable research material," according to the minutes from that meeting.
Tollerud also pointed out some study limitations, including the study's "flawed design and execution" and "potential herbicide exposures in the comparison populations," the minutes show.
In an interview with The News, Tollerud said his comments were not meant to be condemning but to recognize limitations that future researchers need to take into account.
As for the exposed comparison group, he said, "The general result of that kind of a complication in a study design would be to do what we call bias it toward the null, meaning that it might make it less likely that you would observe findings that were really there."
Leoffels said he is in favor of continuing the Ranch Hand study as long as it is done outside the Air Force.
"Why throw away $140 million?" he said.
Leoffels said he lost his job as a letter carrier to post-traumatic stress disorder. The VA compensates him for it, offsetting what he believes he should be getting for Agent Orange damage, but isn't.
He helps other vets navigate the VA, though many get discouraged the first time they are turned down and never go back, he said.
Leoffels said it shouldn't be so difficult for veterans to get the help they need.
"I think what the government wants is for us to die off so they don't have to pay us anything," he said. >Read More
via (VA WatchDog)
0 Comments | Post Comment | Email This
