🚀 go-pugleaf

Notes sent to me by New Zealander Nigel Perry from recent
international conferences at which he presented on injury prevention held in
Melbourne in Feb, 96 provide further insight into the biases of prominent
American helmet zealots Robert and Diane Thompson, and Frederick
Rivara, authors of the widely quoted but flawed Seattle study on the
effectiveness of bike helmets (New England Journal of Medicine, May
25, 1989) and arch-zealot Philip Graitcer of the World Health
Organization's (WHO) Helmet Initiative.

1. Rivara offered up the 5 point plan from Washington State's
children's helmet campaign. The last point was "focus on helmets -
not riding behaviour". In other words, forget CAN-BIKE, Effective
Cycling, or any other cycle skills training, just let child
cyclists get into crashes because helmets will protect them. 

Rivara also argued that helmets provide a 70% decrease in risk of
head injury (his Seattle paper claimed 75%). John Langley from the
Injury Prevention Research Unit (IPRU) at Otago University, NZ,
himself pro-law, questioned this and asked for proof in view of the
NZ results which showed no reduction in head injury rate. He wanted
to know the epidemiologocal evidence for cycle helmets helping in
severe crashes. Prevention of deaths - where is the evidence? The work done in
Seattle and in Oz shows no such evidence.

2. Paul Scuffham, also of IPRU, presented a paper which showed
helmets have not reduced head injury rates in NZ both pre and post
law. The Seattle people attacked the results saying they must be
wrong. Peter Vulcan (Monash Accident Research Centre, Victoria,
Australia), also pro-law, had checked the figures and found the
analysis correct. John Langley thought that helmets were being
oversold, which he considered dangerous and gave the anti-helmet
lobbyists ammunition. (Did he mean anti-law lobbyists?). 

3. Some argued that to promote helmets, real cases should be used
as "this is very persuasive", (certainly more persuasive when there
is no epidemiological evidence to support the effectivenss of
helmets). Diane Thompson stated "negative cases will always occur".

Concerning this selective use of data, Robert Thompson stated it
was his job to provide figures, and society/politicians to make
decisions on laws. When asked shouldn't these figures be in context
Robert Thompson argued that wasn't his job, if society wants them
they should ask!  Curiously, Thompson was also heard to say he
wouldn't want his children walking to school wearing helmets as
some Japanese children do.

4. The Swedes reported on helmet "hangings". They resulted from
helmets getting caught in play equipment, trees, etc. while the
kids were wearing them off-bike. They said that everything was
going fine until 1990 when the tragedies started - "we knew we'd
killed, but didn't know we had saved anybody". 

Philip Gratcier suggested it was badly designed play equipment and
a tree in the wrong place that caused the problems! Just so you
know where Gratcier is coming from, the WHO Helmet Intiative
supports multi-activity helmets so kids can "wear them all the
time". If you thought that the WHO spent money only on worthwhile
causes you'd be wrong. The WHO wastes scarce international resources on helmet
loonies like Graitcer.

An apparent positive aspect of the conference was that it separated
helmet zealots (seemingly all American) from those who value their
integrity. Despite their belief in the efficacy of helmets, many
researchers were prepared to admit that there is still no evidence
that shows helmets reduce serious head injuries or save lives. 

E-mail me if you would like a complete copy of Nigel's notes.
--
Avery Burdett
Ottawa, Ontario