Bsl Article From Canada

[Sticky]

http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/early/2012/06/29/injuryprev-2012-040389.abstract?papetoc

S

[ricey]

http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/early/2012/06/29/injuryprev-2012-040389.abstract?papetoc

S

Hi Sticky,

Thanks for posting this; this is an interesting but flawed study. The authors themselves state "Still, our study has several major limitations." They go on to detail the flaws and limitations in their study but then say "Despite the study limitations listed, trends in

population-level outcomes studied collectively suggest that BSL

in Manitoba may have decreased DBIH (Dog Bite Injury Hospitalisations)in people, especially in

those younger than 20 years."

Talk about an each way bet LOL! They spent a lot of time and money investigating whether BSL in various Canadian constituencies actually reduced dog bites, and all they could come with is "possibly it did but we don't know one way or the other." "However, we are still prepared to say that BSL is helpful even though our results neither support BSL nor disprove its usefulness."

When jurisdictions were used as their own controls in a pre/

post comparison of incidence of dog-bite injury hospitalisations,

no significant reduction in incidence was observed in

the period after breed-specific legislation (BSL) was

implemented.

So this direct quote from this flawed study says that BSL doesn't work. But the next paragraph states:

When temporal and geographical variations were introduced

in a generalised estimating equations model comparing urban

jurisdictions alone, hospitalisation rate in Winnipeg (city with

BSL) relative to Brandon (city without BSL) was lower after

implementation of legislation.

This strikes me as "how to bullshit with statistics". "temporal and geographical variations introduced to a generalised estimating equation" LOL!

I studied statistics at university level and I understand how statistics can be massaged to "prove" anything you want to prove. I'd be ashamed to have my name as an author of an article like this. I note that this is an 'Advance online publication' and this sort of article has not been formally published yet

Advance online articles have been peer reviewed, accepted for publication, edited and typeset, but have not not yet appeared in the paper journal.

Any journo or pollie with an axe to grind about dangerous dog breeds could latch onto an article like this and use it to support their nasty little anti dog vendetta. But the article proves nothing and says nothing.

Regards,

ricey