Why We Should All Be Glad that Dr. Rand Paul is Now a Senator (and Not Your Doctor)

[McCamy Taylor]

GOP pseudoscience strikes again. Dr./Sen. Rand Paul has claimed that there is no link between asthma and air pollution. He bolstered this assertion with a chart showing that air quality in California improved as the number of new asthma diagnoses rose.

“Either they are inversely proportional or they are not related at all."

said the ophthalmologist.

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/sen-rand-paul-claims-asthma-air-pollution-link-article-1.979685#ixzz1e5QYCoiW

According to Dr./Sen. Rand Paul those warnings that your city issues to folks with lung disease to stay home on ozone alert days are just a huge practical joke. Go on! Send your seven year old asthmatic out to play beside the highway. Rand Paul says its ok, and he should know. He’s a doctor---

Paul's assertion highlights one of the weaknesses of traditional medical school education. Apparently no one at Duke University School of Medicine bothered to teach Dr. Paul that association is not causality---and its corollary, lack of association does not prove lack of causality. Oh my.

Why should a doctor understand biostatistics? Because pharmaceutical companies and medical goods manufacturers will bombard him (or her) with studies claiming that substance x cures (or at least ameliorates) disease y. A doctor who can not read a journal article critically will fall victim to every fly by night drug rep that tries to tell him that no one who has ever taken birth control pills has gotten prostate cancer---meaning that the Pill prevents prostate disease!

I think what Rand Paul meant to say is if the number of asthma exacerbations falls on days when ozone and other air pollutants are high, this suggests that asthma severity is either inversely proportional or not related to air pollution. But, of course, we all know that high air pollution levels are associated with asthma exacerbations. And pneumonia. And heart attacks. Here is the NIH telling us that pediatric asthma exacerbations rise as air pollution rises.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16798793

Here’s the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory telling us that ozone and car pollutants are associated with a rise in asthma hospitalizations for children.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100422153810.htm

More on the above study:

Conclusions: Even at relatively low ambient concentrations, ozone and primary pollutants from traffic sources independently contributed to the burden of emergency department visits for pediatric asthma.

http://www.thoracic.org/media/press-releases/resources/strickland-pollution.pdf

Sorry if I gave the impression above that I am knocking Duke University. I promise I am not. Here is a Duke University researcher describing the link between air pollution and airway inflamation.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19654918?dopt=Abstract

I cite the last as proof that Dr. Sen. Rand Paul was asleep during medical school. Good thing he switched careers.

[Scuba]

1. Yeah, but the "board" from which he got his "board certification" agrees with him. n/t

[McCamy Taylor]

5. American Board of Ophthalmology says "No link between pollution and asthma attacks"?

Link please.

[DefenseLawyer]

7. He's not certified by the American Board of Ophthalmology

He is certified by some made up "National Board of Ophthalmology". I think our friend was just reminding us of that.

[Scuba]

9. Bingo. He made up his own board. n/t

[The Genealogist]

2. Conservatives hate science

Nothing new to report there. Science tends to get in the way of their ignorant policies. Yes, they try to use it, and instead fail to grasp it. I'd hate to have him as a doctor.

[ashling]

3. Before this ophthalmologist can talk intelligently about the health effects of smog?

he needs to take the speck out of his own eye ... maybe use some Visene or Restasis?

[TheWraith]

4. Yeah, that's a "you fail science FOREVER" kind of statement.

If someone in academia said that, their colleagues would hose them down with icewater then dump them naked in the countryside.

[Puget Progressive]

6. I'd like to see this right-wing idiot

explain to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. why three of his sons have asthma and why 1 in 4 of all black kids in New York have asthma. The people of Kentucky should be ashamed of the fact that they have elected Mitch McConnell and "Dr." Rand Paul.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

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[The Wizard]

10. How many times

has he been sued for malpractice? You'd be better off with a visit to Dr. Mengele.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

11. He does not understand the concept of preventive care.

He said "Where does it end? How much money do we spend on these people?"

I think he was talking about Medicare.

[indepat]

12. Symptomatic of the pure, undiluted, unadulterated nonsensical verbiage which dribbles from

the fine Senator's mouth. The reality that an idiotic clown of this magnitude can be elected to national office is surreal, but ideology all too often prevails over reason. :patriot:

[rustydog]

13. An Ophthalmologist is a respiratory illness specialist ?

He pulls so much out of his ass, you'd think he specialized in proctology.