October 23, 2005
Sunday

I certainly don't disagree with my fellow Assemblymember Thompson's concerns about "junk science" possibly skewing the debate over the re-opening of Schoenbar Middle School. And no one is going to argue the point that mold exists in just about every structure in our "rain forest."

But before waving the Centers for Disease Control flag too highly it helps to remember that in 1951 the CDC (then called the Communicable Disease Center) issued a report that showed no link between smoking and lung cancer. At the time, the Journal of the American Medical Association was reporting numerous potential links between the two.

Then in early 1981, the CDC published a preliminary report that the disease we would later know as AIDS had apparently been spread primarily by a single jet-setting Canadian flight attendant (the infamous Patient Zero). That was also later disproved.

I don't make these points to indicate that the CDC is always wrong. In fact, it is usually right.

But - that said - the fact remains that when it comes to health isssues, the only thing that we truly can say we know now is that we really didn't know what we thought we knew then.

Dave Kiffer
Ketchikan, AK - USA

Note: Dave Kiffer is a member of the Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly.

Related Viewpoint:

Peddling fear with mold & fugus issue By Glen Thompson - Ketchikan, AK - USA

 

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