From: bruce@Data-IO.COM (Bruce Reynolds)
Subject: Re: Is MSG sensitivity superstition?
Organization: Data I/O Corporation
Lines: 31

smjeff@lerc05.lerc.nasa.gov (Jeff Miller) writes:
>Even properly controlled studies (e.g. double blind studies) are almost
>useless if you are trying to prove that something does not affect anyone.

-- and --

>In article <1qnns0$4l3@agate.berkeley.edu> spp@zabriskie.berkeley.edu (Steve Pope) writes:
>The mass of anectdotal evidence, combined with the lack of
>a properly constructed scientific experiment disproving
>the hypothesis, makes the MSG reaction hypothesis the
>most likely explanation for events.
>

Good grief; has no one ever heard of Biostatistics??  The University of
Washington (plus 3 or 4 others [Harvard, UNC]) has a department and
advanced degree program in Biostatistics.  My wife has an MS Biostat, and
there are plenty of MDs, PhDs, and postdocs doing Biostatistical work.
People do this for a living.  Really bright people study for decades to do
this sort of study well.

Anecedotal evidence is worthless.  Even doctors who have been using a drug
or treatment for years, and who swear it is effective, are often suprised
at the results of clinical trials.  Whether or not MSG causes describable,
reportable, documentable symptoms should be pretty simple to discover.  

The last study on which my wife worked employed 200 nurses, 100 doctors,
and a dozen Ph.Ds at one University and at 70 hospitals in five nations.  I
would think the MSG question could be settled by one lowly Biostat MS
student in a thesis.

--bruce
