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Eran Bellin, MD
Montefiore-Rikers Island Health Service East Elmhurst, NY

JAMA. 1994;272(10):765.

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

To the Editor.

—In their meta-analysis of the published literature on BCG vaccine, Dr Colditz and colleagues¹ attempt to summarize BCG's protective effect by building a statistical model with variables for geographic latitude and validity scores. Geographic latitude is a variable without biological cogency (though some stretches have been attempted), yet it is retained in the model because it conveniently explains 41% of the variability. I suspect that its primary function is to attenuate the impact of the largest, most recent, and most damaging prospective study on the thesis that BCG vaccine is effective—the Madras study.² We should note that the Madras study is larger than the next three studies in size combined^{1(Table 1)} and found no protective effect. The Madras study was felt necessary at the time to finally prove the utility of BCG vaccine, yet its results are ignored without a call for additional study. . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Footnotes
Edited by Drummond Rennie, MD, Deputy Editor (West), and Margaret A. Winker, MD, Senior Editor.

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