>I mean, someone wrote that they studied about 150 ferrets out of
>which 98% were Marshall Farms, and 1/3 of them had problems.  Someone else
>responded to this saying that meant NOTHING.  Well, how can you say it means
>nothing!!  It means that if most of the ferrets were MF to begin with, that
>almost 33% were affected!!  That means a WHOLE LOT to me!!
 
The original poster was using this to suggest that MF ferrets are more
likely to have problems than are others.  My response was that his
statistics were meaningless - yes, 1/3 of the ferrets got cancer.  *this*
part is real, and I agree that its scary - but we already know that adrenal
disease is a common problem in ferrets, just like cancer is a common problem
in humans.  What we don't know is what the cause is - and to answer that,
this study IS meaningless.  Since almost all the ferrets were from MF, it
makes perfect sense that almost all of the sick ones were MF, too.  So these
stats do not mean that MF ferrets are any more likely than non-MF ferrets to
get cancer.  After all, it might well be the case that if there had been 150
non-MF ferrets, 45% of them would have gotten adrenal disease.  All that can
be taken from this study is that many of the ferrets got adrenal disease -
but until we find out WHY ferrets get adrenal disease, we can't do anything
to solve the problem.  Trying to claim that its all MF's fault, without any
proof, only sidetracks the issue - MF ferrets are NOT the only ferrets to
get adrenal disease, and no one has really even shown that they're more
likely to get adrenal disease than are other ferrets (at least in the US),
let alone whether such a difference would be due to genetics or to early
altering.  Until that part is shown, suggesting that adrenal disease is only
a MF thing is only confusing matters.  Trying to evoke an emotional response
based on faulty statistics does not get us any closer to solving the real
problem, and by focusing entirely on MF, we're ignoring a lot of the other
possible causes for this disease.
 
-rochelle
[Posted in FML issue 1991]