PEDIATRICS Vol. 81 No. 6 June 1988, pp. 913
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What Is `Significant' and DTP Reactions

HOWARD J. HOFFMAN MA1, JEHU C. HUNGER BS1, EILEEN G. HASSELMEYER PHD1, KARLA DAMUS PHD2, JEAN PAKTER MD3, DONALD R. PETERSON MD4, and GERALD VAN BELLE PHD4

1 NIH/NICHHD, Prevention Research Program and Scientific Review Program, Bethesda, MD 20892
2 Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Bronx, NY 10461
3 Columbia University Medical School, Center for Population and Family Health, New York, NY 10032
4 Unviersity of Washington, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Seattle, WA 98195

In Reply.—

The two letters received in response to our article1 express a diversity of opinion regarding the inferences to be drawn from the findings regarding SIDS and DTP reported from the NICHD SIDS Cooperative Epidemiological Study. In the first instance, Dr Eden suggests that we were too cautious in our concluding statement that: "DTP immunization does not appear to be a significant factor in the occurrence of SIDS." The critical point to be made is that in any study, regardless of the number of subjects included and the care taken in study design and implementation, the most that can be claimed is a statistical result that admits a small probability of exception.