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Bruce B. Dan, MD
Chicago

JAMA. 1985;254(5):610.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

In Reply.—

Sadly, Sterling and Arundel have misquoted my editorial. It did not say that "the results of the Erickson study show that there is no basis for a link between Agent Orange and birth defects." It said, "it is unlikely that serious congenital abnormalities in children of men serving in Vietnam were results of that experience."¹

Of the almost 100 congenital abnormalities investigated in the study, Sterling and Arundel pointed out the two whose incidence was higher than expected. Yet they have failed to mention the four abnormalities whose incidence was less than expected. If one were to adhere to this solely statistical line of reasoning, a valid conclusion would be that children of veterans of this era were somehow protected from hydrocephalus, anophthalmia, liver and gallbladder abnormalities, and sex organ defects.²

To be valid, differences in expected incidence must not only be statistically unusual, they must . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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