but how would you explain a rate of 4 times the usual of leuchemia? (sic)
First thing you do is ignore the paper and go to the abstract and look for the letter 'p' followed by a number. It's the only thing in the paper that matters, it would tell you if '4 times the usual' means anything.
but how would you explain........ a study I have seen from November last year, an incident rate of breast cancer of 5 times for female cabin attendants having flown more than 5 years compared to c/a's having flown less than 5 years
See above, search for the 'p'. If it was significant, I would then ask whether flight attendants who had worked for > 5 years were older then flight attendents who had worked for < 5 years. If so, get a bulb going off in my head which said older people get breast cancer more than younger people. Then I'd get somebody who understood statistics better than me to work out what 'p' was for a study comparing different jobs of groups of workers of similar ages.
And if you got significant results, you'd have to prove it was due to cosmic radiation and not something that was in airline food, which I would have to assume was more likely
