Abstract
tions. We concede that the events were too scarce for a reliable estimate of our main measure specified by age at fol low-up. This limitation does not concern the main results and the interpretation of our paper, and there are no similar dom inant strata in other analyses. Our findings for patients with and without appendicitis are not logically inconsistent. If a genuine protective ef fect were linked to the appendectomy itself, as we think, the individuals with and without appendicitis should have similar effects. As shown, their confi dence intervals overlap considerably. It is correct that our subjects sur vived in the analysis only until the ap pendectomy. As most of them are quite young, this could not have had any ma jor effect in our study. We agree that one cannot advocate prophylactic appendectomy at present.6 However, if we could identify healthy subjects at high absolute risk of UC, we should not deny them the potential benefit of mounting a randomized clinical trial of prophylactic appendectomy.
Highlights
To the Editor, Daniels et al.[1] studied the association between maternal fish intake and neurobehavioral development in the child
Fish-eating mothers had an increased cord-mercury concentration, Figure 1 suggests that, among fisheaters, the mercury concentration was independent of the frequency of fish intake
We are surprised that the authors conclude from their findings that maternal fish intake is a validated surrogate for mercury exposure
Summary
To the Editor, Daniels et al.[1] studied the association between maternal fish intake and neurobehavioral development in the child. The Harvard community has made this article openly available. In a convenience subsample of 1054 selected from a larger number of births, the authors measured the mercury concentration in umbilical cord tissue.
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