PEDIATRICS Vol. 72 No. 1 July 1983, pp. 131-133
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Prophylactic and Remedial Therapy for the Intellectual Ailments of `Biostatistics'

ALVAN R. FEINSTEIN MD1

1 Departments of Medicine and Epidemiology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut

This issue contains Dr Gregory Hayden's interesting survey of trends in the biostatistical components of Pediatrics during a 30-year period (Pediatrics 1983;72:84-87). After showing that biostatistical procedures are now used much more often than before, and that the methods have become more complicated, Hayden urges readers to learn more about statistics and urges editors to "institute more formal and thorough statistical review of manuscripts."

Both of these recommendations seem eminently reasonable and sensible, but like many other reasonable and sensible policies, they may not be easy to carry out. Since biochemical, microbial, and molecular methods are now also used in medical research more often than previously, and have also become more complicated, investigative reports that contain these methods will also produce analogous problems for readers and editors who "arrested" at an earlier stage of methodologic maturation.