There in no mention of this "study" on junkscience.com yet but the writer expects the Malloy will eviserate the misuse of the statistics and the confusion of cause and effect.

There is nothing on this "study" over on junkscience.com yet, but the writer anticipates that Malloy will eviserate the misuse of statistical analysis and the probable confusion of cause and effect.

Here's a question: giving antibiotics to cattle fattens them up, so does taking lots of antibiotics make people fatter?

Don't you know that correlation equals causation?

The rest of the story on NPR noted that the correlation could be the result of the chronic conditions that led to the prolonged antibiotic usage, with the antibiotics themselves serving only as a proxy for the true cause.

I got it as 500 days of use which would be 50 Rx's. or 3 per year.

CPR is hazardous to your health!!

Persons who survived, following at least 90 seconds of a standard Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation(CPR) procedure, were 40 times more likely to die within the following two years.

ergo: CPR is hazardous to your health!

I know Steve Taplin, and he does not do junk science.

After reading the Post article, it's obvious that most of the above comments were by people who relied only upon the selective extract and misleading comment in this blog.

Either that, or you are idiots.

I see, David D. Either we agree with you, or we are idiots. That's a great way to win friends and influence people. Dale Carnegie would be proud of you.

I'm not trying to win friends or influence people - I'm saying that if someone bothered to read the article they would have noticed that there was no mention of causation; in fact, it says

" 'One finding that cast doubt on the possibility that antibiotics increase the risk for breast cancer was that the study found the risk for all types of antibiotics', said Debbie Saslow, director of breast and gynecologic cancer for the American Cancer Society. That makes it unlikely it is the antibiotics because different types work in very different ways, she said."

In other words, although breast cancer risk and increased antibiotic use are associated, antibiotic use does not seem to cause breast cancer. Yes, causation seems to be ruled out.

That's why I assumed some posters hadn't read the story.

The reason this study is mentioned anywhere outside of a medical journal is that no one really knows what causes breast cancer. If the same people who get cancer are also at higher risk for bacterial infections, that's an important clue.

To dismiss his "study" as 'junk science' and assume that the epidemiologist is statistically ignorant says to me one of two things: either someone didn't read the article, or they didn't understand it.

In the interests of full disclosure, I applied for a job with Dr Taplin several years ago. He didn't hire me.

PapayaSF:

Antibiotics allow cattle to be quickly fattened by being fed grain and other quasi-foodstuffs, such as shredded newspaper, without dying.

As cattle's natural diet is grass, not grain, it's necessary if one is determined to fatten them as quickly as possible.

Unless people are being given antibiotics in order to allow them to stomach what otherwise would kill them, it's not similar to a feedlot operation.

Actually, as refined sugar is a toxin, and Americans consume ever-increasing quantities of it, perhaps some people ARE allowed to become both fat and alive by using antibiotics.