THE CDC WANTS EVERYONE TO WEAR A HELMET

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stepped outside of its mandate by calling for universal helmet laws.  The Community Prevention Services Task Force is basing it recommendation on studies of U.S. states and foreign countries that require all riders to wear helmets, those that require only minors to wear helmets and those that have no helmet requirement. “Researchers examined evidence from the United States and other high-income countries [made available through the United Nations’ World Health Organization] and found that implementation of universal laws in place of partial helmet laws or no law led to substantial increases in helmet use and decreases in motorcycle-related deaths and injuries,” according to the task force’s statement. “When universal helmet laws were repealed and replaced with partial laws or no law, the opposite effects were seen.  The AMA disputes the findings and points out the CDC task force did not cite any detailed analysis of the studies and simply interpreted the numbers how they wanted.  “Correlation does not imply causation,” said Wayne Allard, AMA’s vice president for government relations. “Instead of trying to draw conclusions from this type of observation, the CDC task force could have better spent its time and resources searching for cures for infectious diseases.” 

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