1 Office of Health, Statistics Analysis, National Center for Health Statistics, U.S. Public Health Service, Rockville, Maryland 20852
We showed Dr. Nichols' letter to Drs. Moriyama and Yankauer. Dr. Moriyama writes:
Dr. Nichols makes reference to problems of definitions and registration practices in three countries, namely, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. By applying these criteria to data from several hospitals in the United States, he points out the large differences between the derived and observed rates.
I will not comment on the "artefacts" that Dr. Nichols has created with his arithmetic. Rather, I shall confine my remarks to the specific issues which Dr. Nichols has raised.