Prediction of the recurrence risk of Graves' disease after antithyroid drug therapy

Environmental Disease

article

Zhang, Qiang¹  Fu, Ying¹ 

[1] Center for Endocrine Metabolism and Immune Diseases, Beijing Luhe Hospital, Capital Medical University;Center for Endocrine Metabolism and Immune Diseases, Beijing Key Laboratory of Diabetes Research and Care

关键词: Adverse health effects;    Bradford Hill criteria;    evidence of causation;    industrial wind turbines;   

DOI  :  10.4103/ed.ed_16_21

来源: Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications

【 摘 要 】

The weight of evidence indicates occurrences of adverse health effects (AHEs) from living and working near industrial wind turbines (IWTs). Descriptions of the AHEs being reported by those living or working near the turbines are similar. While these occurrences have been associated with exposure to audible and inaudible noise annoyance, the causation of reported wind turbine-associated health effects remains controversial. Establishing an argument of causation of adverse health outcomes has important clinical, scientific, and societal implications. Bradford Hill (BH) criteria have been widely used to establish causality between an environmental agent and risk of disease or disability, but have not previously been used to evaluate the relationship between IWTs and AHEs. The objective was to apply the BH criteria to evaluate the relationship between IWTs and AHEs. The nine criteria include the strength of the association, consistency, specificity, temporal sequence, biological gradient, plausibility, coherence, experimental evidence, and analogous evidence. These nine criteria have been applied to IWT exposure and reported AHEs using peer-reviewed and other published literature that describes clinical, animal, and laboratory studies, testimony and reported experiences, and internet sources. Applying the BH criteria to the IWT-related clinical, biological, and experimental data demonstrates that the exposure to IWTs is associated with an increased risk of AHEs. This analysis concludes that living or working near IWTs can result in AHEs in both people and animals. Our findings provide compelling evidence that the risk of AHEs should be considered before the approval of wind energy projects and during the assessment of setback distances of proposed and operational projects.

【 授权许可】

CC BY-NC-SA