Geoffrey Kabat

Geoffrey C. Kabat is an American epidemiologist, cancer researcher, and author. He has been on the faculty of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and State University of New York, Stony Brook. He is the author of "Hyping Health Risks: Environmental Hazards in Daily Life and the Science of Epidemiology" and "Getting Risk Right: Understanding the Science of Elusive Health Risks".

Scientific work

Over a forty-year career, Kabat has studied a wide range of lifestyle, clinical, and environmental exposures in relation to cancer and other diseases, and mortality. Major topics of interest include: smoking, alcohol consumption, diet and nutrition, endogenous and exogenous hormones, obesity and height, the metabolic syndrome, physical activity, electromagnetic fields, and sleep. He has written over 150 scientific papers published in prominent medical and epidemiology journals.[1]

In 2003, Kabat, who then worked at the State University of New York, Stony Brook,[2] co-authored a study in BMJ examining the association between passive smoking and tobacco-related mortality. The study concluded that its results "do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality."[3][4] The study was partly funded by the tobacco industry and was heavily publicized by it,[5][6] and was criticized for using a dataset that did not include an "unexposed" group.[7] In his book Hyping Health Risks, Kabat describes the criticism of this study as scientific McCarthyism.[8]

In 2011, Kabat authored a study which found an association between high blood sugar levels and an increased risk of colon cancer.[9][10] In 2013, Kabat published a study which found that taller women were at an increased risk of developing all types of cancer after menopause.[11][12] Kabat and the other authors of this study noted that height should not be viewed as a risk factor for cancer but rather as a marker for exposures that increase the risk of cancer.[13]

Writings about environmental health, health risks, and reproducible science

Hyping Health Risks: Environmental Hazards in Daily Life and the Science of Epidemiology

Hyping Health Risks, a book published in 2008 by Columbia University Press, describes how scientific findings regarding the possible health effects of environmental exposures can get distorted due to biases and agendas affecting different groups. Scientists can have a desire to find significant results to support their hypothesis; the media are interested in a gripping story; the public is disposed to believe that low-level exposures in their surroundings may be a threat; finally, health/regulatory agencies can get involved because they want to appear to be responsive to public concern. These separate motivations can coalesce to give the appearance of solidity to what may be a minuscule or undetectable threat. In an introductory chapter Kabat explains the fundamentals of epidemiology: its strengths, limitations, and major achievements. The core of the book consists of four case studies of alleged risks that sparked enormous public concern but, on closer examination, turned out to be greatly inflated. These are: environmental pollution and breast cancer; electromagnetic fields (from power lines and electrical appliances) and health; radon gas leaking into homes as a possible cause of lung cancer; and secondhand tobacco smoke as a cause of lung cancer. In the course of these case studies, we learn how to view the sensationalized results in the context of what is known about the well-established causes of breast cancer, lung cancer and other diseases.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Ronald Bailey wrote, "Geoffrey Kabat, an epidemiologist himself, shows how activists, regulators and scientists distort or magnify minuscule environmental risks. He duly notes the accomplishments of epidemiology, such as uncovering the risks of tobacco smoking and the dangers of exposure to vinyl chloride and asbestos. And he acknowledges that industry has attempted to manipulate science. But he is concerned about a less reported problem: 'The highly charged climate surrounding environmental health risks can create powerful pressure for scientists to conform and to fall into line with a particular position.'"[14]

In a long review in the American Journal of Epidemiology, the epidemiologist David Savitz wrote, "The stories of the rise and fall of the controversies are very nicely written, capturing a time in our recent history that the author (and many of the potential readers of the book) lived through. The dynamics of the personalities come across vividly, with clarity and accuracy regarding the technical issues behind the controversies and a thoughtful, if highly subjective answer to the question, What happened?...This book forcefully examines that question -- What goes wrong when the good intentions of scientists and activists are based on weak epidemiologic findings?"[15]

Getting Risk Right: Understanding the Science of Elusive Health Risks

Kabat is the author of the book Hyping Health Risks, published in 2008 by Columbia University Press. The book examines several alleged environmental health risks, such as the proposed link between artificial chemicals and cancer, and concludes that these risks have been distorted.[16] In the book, Kabat also discusses the science relating to the adverse health effects of passive smoking, arguing that anti-smoking activists have manipulated the results of scientific studies to justify increasingly stringent anti-smoking regulations.[17]

David A. Savitz reviewed the book and wrote "For the most part, the story of truth and misrepresentation of evidence on health risks [in the book] was engaging".[18] It was also reviewed in the New England Journal of Medicine, where Barbara Gastel wrote that "Kabat is at his best in the chapters in which he presents the case studies," but she criticized the book's first chapter, entitled "Introduction: Toward a Sociology of Health Hazards in Daily Life".[19] In a more negative review, Neil Pearce wrote in the International Journal of Epidemiology that he "became more frustrated and less impressed as [he] worked [his] way through the book" and criticized the book for what he called its "lack of balance".[20]

Terence Hines wrote that Kabat "more than accomplishes" his goals of discovering how it is that extraordinary progress is made solving some problems but little is made solving others and why instances of progress get little attention while scientifically questionable issues get more attention. Hines said of the chapter reviewing the question of whether cell phones cause cancer, it "alone is worth the price of the book."[21]

Columns

Kabat contributes a column to Forbes magazine, described as being about "the science and politics of health risks".[22] In a 2009 article in Spiked, Kabat criticized promoters of a link between cell phone use and cancer for what he said was the "astoundingly selective and slanted presentation they give of the relevant evidence."[23]

References

  1. ↑ Search Results for author Kabat G on PubMed.
  2. ↑ Pearson, Helen (May 16, 2003). "All in a puff over passive smoking". doi:10.1038/news030512-15.
  3. ↑ Enstrom, J. E (15 May 2003). "Environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality in a prospective study of Californians, 1960–98". BMJ. 326 (7398): 1057–0. doi:10.1136/bmj.326.7398.1057. PMC 155687. PMID 12750205.
  4. ↑ Sullum, Jacob (16 May 2003). "Weak Link". Reason. Retrieved 31 January 2015.
  5. ↑ Bhattacharya, Shaoni (16 May 2003). "Controversy over passive smoking danger". New Scientist. Retrieved 31 January 2015.
  6. ↑ Tong, E. K.; Glantz, S. A. (16 October 2007). "Tobacco Industry Efforts Undermining Evidence Linking Secondhand Smoke With Cardiovascular Disease". Circulation. 116 (16): 1845–1854. doi:10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.107.715888. PMID 17938301.
  7. ↑ Bero, LA; Glantz, S; Hong, MK (April 2005). "The limits of competing interest disclosures". Tobacco control. 14 (2): 118–26. PMC 1748015. PMID 15791022.
  8. ↑ Hines, Terence (July–August 2009). "When Science Gets Distorted for Nonscientific Reasons". Skeptical Inquirer. Retrieved 31 January 2015.
  9. ↑ Kabat, G C; Kim, M Y; Strickler, H D; Shikany, J M; Lane, D; Luo, J; Ning, Y; Gunter, M J; Rohan, T E (29 November 2011). "A longitudinal study of serum insulin and glucose levels in relation to colorectal cancer risk among postmenopausal women". British Journal of Cancer. 106 (1): 227–232. doi:10.1038/bjc.2011.512. PMC 3251859. PMID 22127286.
  10. ↑ "High Blood Sugar Seems to Invite Colon Cancer". Fox News Channel. 30 November 2011. Retrieved 31 January 2015.
  11. ↑ Kabat, G. C.; Anderson, M. L.; Heo, M.; Hosgood, H. D.; Kamensky, V.; Bea, J. W.; Hou, L.; Lane, D. S.; Wactawski-Wende, J.; Manson, J. E.; Rohan, T. E. (25 July 2013). "Adult Stature and Risk of Cancer at Different Anatomic Sites in a Cohort of Postmenopausal Women". Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. 22 (8): 1353–1363. doi:10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-13-0305. PMID 23887996.
  12. ↑ Zuckerman, Laura (25 July 2013). "Study finds link between women's height and cancer risk". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 31 January 2015.
  13. ↑ Morin, Monte (25 July 2013). "Tall women have higher cancer risk; are smoking, drinking to blame?". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 31 January 2015.
  14. ↑ Bailey, Ronald (11 August 2008). "Scared Senseless". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 31 January 2015.
  15. ↑ Savitz, D. A. (3 March 2009). "Hyping Health Risks: Environmental Hazards in Daily Life and the Science of Epidemiology: By Geoffrey C. Kabat". American Journal of Epidemiology. 169 (8): 1039–1041. doi:10.1093/aje/kwp013.
  16. ↑ Bailey, Ronald (11 August 2008). "Scared Senseless". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 31 January 2015.
  17. ↑ Fitzpatrick, Michael (30 October 2009). "The anti-smoking 'truth regime' that cannot be questioned". Spiked. Retrieved 31 January 2015.
  18. ↑ Savitz, D. A. (3 March 2009). "Hyping Health Risks: Environmental Hazards in Daily Life and the Science of Epidemiology: By Geoffrey C. Kabat". American Journal of Epidemiology. 169 (8): 1039–1041. doi:10.1093/aje/kwp013.
  19. ↑ Gastel, Barbara (29 January 2009). "Book Review Hyping Health Risks: Environmental Hazards in Daily Life and the Science of Epidemiology By Geoffrey C. Kabat. 250 pp. New York, Columbia University Press, 2008. $27.95. 978-0-231-14148-2". New England Journal of Medicine. 360 (5): 548–549. doi:10.1056/NEJMbkrev0807040.
  20. ↑ Pearce, N. (18 September 2008). "Hyping Health Risks: Environmental Hazards in Daily Life and the Science of Epidemiology. Kabat GC". International Journal of Epidemiology. 38 (6): 1746–1748. doi:10.1093/ije/dyn198.
  21. ↑ Hines, Terence (2017). "Why We Often Get Risks Wrong". Skeptical Inquirer. 41 (4): 58–60. Retrieved 23 September 2018.
  22. ↑ Geoffrey Kabat. "Most Cancers May Simply Be Due To Bad Luck". Forbes. Retrieved 31 January 2015.
  23. ↑ Kabat, Geoffrey (15 September 2009). "The hard cell". Spiked. Retrieved 6 February 2015.
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