NHTSA Doing Bogus Science?

[docB]

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NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) is doing studies as described in this report on CNN.

In short sheriff's deputies pull drivers over and then ask them to voluntarily submit to anonymous saliva and/or blood tests to see how many people are driving while impaired.

This data will be used to help NHTSA set goals and policies and for anyone who didn't know NHTSA is very influential in the world of EM in that they set policies for EMS and trauma systems.

Aside from the civil liberty and privacy concerns discussed in the article I have two big problems with this research:

First any study like this will be devastated by selection bias. Imagine if you had one drink or took a Benadryl that day and got "selected." Would you believe the people saying it's anonymous or would you remember an important appointment you just had to get to? Clearly the number of impaired people will be underestimated in this study. Presumably the statistical techniques and analysis they mention will amount to trying to compensate by inflating the positive number but then that's really just a guess. Consequently any result will be highly dubious.

Second this study is unnecessary and wasteful. What difference will it make if the number of impaired drivers is 5% or 10% or 30%? If it's 5% will NHTSA declare they are ok with that and nothing else needs to be done? That's highly unlikely. Since NHTSA will always work to reduce the number of impaired drivers the study is unnecessary. I think it's an example of a bureaucracy doing things because they always have and needing to justify their budget.

 

[Birdstrike]

#1 I'm commenting because I think it's lame that when a good poster posts something intelligent and everyone yawns. (Wake up people! Stop lurking, start thinking and commenting.)

#2 I agree, but remember, the NHTSA is a political entity. Like any other government agency, they can produce absolute junk science if they want to and it's okay because the whole purpose is to create a sham study to spin for whatever pre-conceived political agenda the administration in power has. (Both parties do it.) It's the way the game is played. Science to them, is simply a means to an end and can be manipulated, shaped, ignored, spun or distorted to further an agenda. The search for the "truth" goes only so far as the government's agenda does. There is such a profound level of bias in almost all scientific studies nowadays, "evidence based medicine" is almost a sham; from drug company funded studies which are a farce, to junk studies done to pad academic resumes, to agenda driven studies like these with preconceived results, I just don't know who to believe anymore.

 

[wholeheartedly]

The epidemiology student in me cringed pretty bad reading that. I'd like to see the study design on that one, if one even exists. Or an IRB, lol. On the other hand, in my Epi 1 grad class we had an article of the day where we went over something in the mainstream media and compared it to reality and there was always a striking difference. So I do really wonder about the study design behind the buzz and controversy.

I wonder if it's like DocB said, bureaucracy and justifying a budget or some grad student trying to get a pub, or some politician with an agenda, or something else entirely.

The influence of politics on science is one of my biggest pet peeves. If the professionals don't know who to trust, how can the patients? We wonder why they get all sucked up into things like the anti-vaxer bs or whatever, but we know the pharm companies, and the govt. are fudging data...so can we blame them for being leery, really?

A documentary on the obesity problem I watched last night had interesting clips of a surgeon general testifying about having his speeches altered by govt. officials, people without a medical background, about being censored repeatedly for political reasons, etc. I wasn't surprised, it wasn't really news to me, but it was striking still.

 

[Doctor Bob]

(Wake up people! Stop lurking, start thinking and commenting.)

Commenting for the sake of commenting can detract from the original post.
I agree that if you have something to say you should say it... but there are a lot of posts that are nothing more than "👍" or a rehashing of a previous person's statement, or a tangential rant.

I didn't comment the first time I read the OP post because it was succinct and although it was thought provoking I didn't feel I had anything meaningful to add.