Newsletter of Note
The May 2002 edition of Vital Stats: The Number Behind the News just hit my in box. It's the newsletter of the Statistical Assessment Service, a DC-based research nonprofit "devoted to the accurate use of scientific and social research in public policy debate."

From the Service Web site: "Stats serves as a resource for journalists by providing timely and well-researched analysis of current statistical and scientific disputes. Since Stats seeks to weed out bad data and research before it enters the media stream, we field queries from journalists on a regular basis."

This issue of their newsletter looks at a recent National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism study, a Danish report on the ties between breast feeding and intelligence, a Newsweek cover story on Hepatitis C, and misleading graphs in the Wall Street Journal. I hope I get another issue of this newsletter, which is an odd cross between the Smoking Gun and American Demographics.