PEDIATRICS Vol. 58 No. 6 December 1976, pp. 914
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Questions Sampling Technique

Angelo Ferrara M.D.1

1 Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics, Director of Pediatric Allergy Service, New York University-Bellevue Medical Center, New York, New York

What Pierson et al.1 described in their article in the September 1974 issue should be encouraged. Some modalities of asthma treatment (e.g., corticosteroid) traditionally have been carried out without the rigors of research.

There are a few observations that could be clarified.

(1) In their experimental design, the authors state that the 45 patients with status asthmaticus were randomly assigned either to a placebo (control) group or to one of the steroid-treated groups. If probability sampling2 was done, as I assume it was, then why were none of the previously treated steroid group (14 out of the 45 patients; see Fig. 2) represented in the control population?