billo said: " In this case, the authors *did* state the referent group, and
not just
in the table to which you refer. If you read the text of the paper,
the paragraph where they discuss the glyphosate OR *starts* by
noting the referent group is the herbicide group."

H. Kuska reply: yes, the paragraph does start with a discussion of Table 6
as you have quoted: " "Examination of the frequency of applicator families
with birth defects
by pesticide use class category (Table 6) shows that 15.4% of
applicators who applied fumigants, insecticides, and herbicides had at
least one child with a birth defect compared with 6.8% in the referent
exposure group who applied only herbicides...."

H. Kuska continuation of reply: notice they are discussing the data in Table
6 (for the reader the data in Table 6 does not even mention glyphosate, it
discusses classes of pesticides
(herbicides/insecticides/fumigants/fungicides/other)). Later in the
paragraph they then discuss other cases. Yes, they probably should have
started another paragraph at that point; perhaps they did; and that in the
typesetting process the indentation was lost - all we can conclude for sure
is that, for whatever the reason, a new paragraph marker is not there. That
doesn't mean that they intended for the referent group definition to apply
to the phosphine and glyphosate sentences nor does it mean that they are
lying. Yes, it could cause some confusion to some readers.

Why did you not take my suggestion and do the calculations for the phosphine
case and see for yourself? You can even take my suggestion one step further
and do the phosphine calculations using your interpretation:

The following is the calculation using what I interpret that you feel is the
referent data (8 infected out of 118 in herbicide only class).

a= 38
b=962
c=8
d=110

CI = 0.54, 95 % CI = 0.25 - 1.19

If you have any further questions please let me know.

Henry Kuska, retired

http://home.neo.rr.com/kuska/