Dear Mr. Milloy,
I am the co-producer of last Sunday's "60 Minutes" segment on the link between smoking and sexual dysfunction. I am responding to comments you posted on your web-site, and the letter that you addressed to Bob Anderson and myself.
In the visitor comments section of your web-site, you ask, "Did I miss something? Was I wrong?" In that spirit, I am writing to inform you that you were mistaken about the CDC study. Perhaps you were in a hurry and misread the abstract, but if you re-read it, you will see that the CDC scientists clearly state in the abstract that "the association still held even after adjustments were made for confounders."
Thus your statement in your letter to us, that "once the crude study results were adjusted....no statistically association between smoking and impotence remained" is erroneous.
Regarding other statements in your letter: you stated that we cited a 1994 CDC study claiming that smokers had twice the risk of impotence as nonsmokers. That is incorrect. We only said that the CDC study found results similar to what the previous scientist had just said in our broadcast. That highly respected epidemiologist was reporting results from his new (not yet published) follow-up study. He said that smoking was found to be an independent risk factor for erectile dysfunction, and that smokers were found to be twice as likely to be impotent as non-smokers. We then mentioned that the CDC study had found similar results -- because a 1.8 odds ratio is indeed similar to a 2.0 odds ratio, as you tacitly acknowlege in your posting on your web-site.
In your letter and on your web-site you also noted that the CDC study did not find a dose-response relationship between smoking and impotence. That is true, but we did not say that the CDC study did find a dose-relationship. Several other studies did find a dose-relationship, e.g. the angiogram study by Rosen and Greenfield (whom we did interview in the piece) which documented the atherosclerosis in the penile arteries. (Also, the CDC journal article speculated that their study's lack of a finding of a dose-response relation may have been due to the fact that the study population was relatively young.)
As for the second-hand smoke study, the magnitude of the risk seems less important than the revelation that there may indeed be a risk from secondhand smoke as well. Also, the people who did the study are highly regarded scientists. Perhaps you did not see that part of the story, when the epidemiolist ventured a possible explanation for their findings (i.e. non-smokers who live with smoking partners are probably exposed to prolonged secondhand smoke at close proximity, to the point that it may become like smoking themselves.)
FYI, there is a great deal of peer-reviewed research that attests to a link between smoking and sexual dysfunction. If you had spoken with as many researchers, clinicians and patients as we have regarding this topic, I suspect that you would understand why we thought it was worth bringing to the attention of the public.
You indicate that you value accuracy, so I hope that you will now promptly correct your error on your web-site. Many people are unfortunately being misled -- even if only unintentionally -- by your statement that no statistically significant association remained after the CDC scientists made adjustments for possible confounders. The abstract clearly states just the opposite.
Sincerely, Lisa Marantos
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