Michele Kearney's Nuclear Wire: Statistics were manipulated to fabricate an increase in infant mortality in eight US cities claim for Fukushim

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Statistics were manipulated to fabricate an increase in infant mortality in eight US cities claim for Fukushim

Scientific American checks the numbers on the claim that there was a 35% increase in infant mortality in the USA after Fukushima.

By explicitly excluding data from January and February were Sherman and Mangano able to froth up their specious statistical scaremongering. It certainly is true that there were fewer deaths in the four weeks leading up to Fukushima (in green) than there have been in the 10 weeks following (in red), the entire year has seen no overall trend. When I plotted a best-fit line to the data (in blue), Excel calculated a very slight decrease in the infant mortality rate.