POTSHOTS

Re: "Shut down Insite, writes drug use report author," Colin Mangham,
Opinion, May 30.

Colin Mangham makes what is probably the most outrageous statement to
appear in your pages for quite some time: "Dr. Kerr must know as a
researcher that something being in a peer-reviewed journal does not
mean the science is necessarily good or the interpretations accurate."

Isn't that why these reviews are done, to ensure as much as possible
that the science is good and the interpretations accurate?

Otherwise, why bother?

If Mangham were the least bit interested in informing the public about
this issue, he would have pointed out exactly where those who support
Insite have erred in science or in interpretation.

If someone in the media can persuade a representative from each side
to explain where the other side went wrong in their analyses, I'm sure
the public would be grateful. Most of us are getting more than a bit
weary of the irritable sniping between groups of supposedly logical
scientists on this issue.

Alan Randell,

Victoria