"Chemicals are not a stretch," says Los Angeles Times medical report Thomas Maugh.
Yesterday's Times ran the headline "Chemicals called main cause of Parkinson's" for Maugh's article about a new Journal of the American Medical Association study reporting on the role of genetics in the development of Parkinson Disease.
In response to the story I submitted this letter pointing out the study did not examine chemicals as a potential cause of Parkinson Disease.
Maugh e-mailed the following to me:
I think your letter is wide of the mark.
Parkinson's experts have long argued, I think reasonably, that there are two potential causes of the disorder--genes, or exposure to something in the environment. Hence, whenthe new study shows that it is not genes, then it must be something in the environmet.
Chemicals are not a stretch. A variety of earlier epidemiological studies, listed in the footnotes of the paper and the editorial, have linked PD to many potenial sources, including pesticides, herbicides, well water, and so forth. That link was reinforced, as I noted, when Langston discovered that MPTP could cause PD. It's structure is similar to that of many suspect chemicals.
I therefore think our reporting was fair and balanced.
Thomas H. Maugh II
Medical Writer
Los Angeles TimesSo his defense for the headline "Chemicals called main cause of Parkinson's" is "Chemicals are not a stretch?"
Here are some additional points:
- The study was not about chemicals exposures; it cannot implicate something it did not examine.
- As the authors acknowledge, the cross-sectional study is not dispositive on the genetics issue.
- The few references cited in the editorial (there were none in the study) are small studies which conclusions are based on statistical associations, and poor characterization of exposure and confounding factors. Some are even contradictory.
I don't know whether chemicals are involved in the etiology of Parkinson's. Neither do the study authors.
I have a lot of confidence that the Los Angeles Times doesn't know either.
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