Statistics are a tool. Like every tool they have their uses and they have their weaknesses. I don’t claim to be an expert on cancer but in full disclosure I’m one of those random cancer patients with stage 3 colon cancer at a statistically defying and baffling age of 29. My doctors refused to test me for colon related issues for 6 months because statistically speaking there was no way I had cancer at my age. They were so very wrong and I am the one living with the consequences.  I hang out with a fairly large group of breast cancer survivors and several women currently being treated for it. They are all too young to statistically recommend their first mammogram for several years but they have already had cancer whether someone statistically believes it or not. I also found out that someone that I graduated high school with from a small school has stage 3 colon cancer as well. Statistically speaking in relation to each other we are extreme statistical outliers. The odds of two 29 year olds with stage 3 colon cancer knowing each other growing up is incredibly small but it happened. But I digress, moving on.

Johnson’s math is a limited tool that he is using to paint broad stroke conclusions. I and many of my new cancer surviving friends are living proof that statistics don’t always paint the whole picture. He clearly believes that cancer clusters do not exist and that’s his right but I wouldn’t base future environmental policy solely on it.

While there was no doubt that there was a completely unnecessary contamination by PG&E, the actual health effects don’t seem to have matched the scare of potential health effects.