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Iditarod web sites
See related pages:
http://www.adn.com/pf/mushing
http://www.iditarod.com/
http://www.adn.com/iditarod/
Even before the 1999 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race began, the first broadside landed from an Outside expert on dog care. "I call the Iditarod something else: Ihurtadog," wrote Jon Saraceno, a columnist for USA Today, the self-proclaimed "national" newspaper. "It is a travesty of grueling proportions. ... The race's death rate is 2.9 fatalities for every 1,000 competitors. That would translate into 290 deaths in the Boston Marathon during the last decade, according to the Humane Society." The great thing about the American media is that you don't have to know a lick to state your opinions. The terrible thing about the American media is that you don't have to know a lick to state your opinions. Both arise here, because Saraceno has stumbled on an interesting comparison. Strip away the statistical skullduggery that leaves one wondering if the columnist is a shill for the Humane Society of the United States or merely a sucker, and there is some intriguing substance. Statistics are, after all, at least partially science, and not some touchy-feely mumbo-jumbo pseudo-science focused on whether or not dogs really want to run, and if so, how hard, and if that, what might be man's responsibility to keep them from overdoing what they want to do, etc., etc., etc. No, statistics can provide valid, black-and-white comparisons. All that is required is that the matters being compared be made mathematically equal. To compare apples with oranges, in other words, one must first make the apples look - at least statistically - like oranges. Either in ignorance or deceit, Saraceno neglects this. That is too bad, because in carrying out the necessary statistical corrections, some surprises emerge. Follow along and watch as we try to make these two events comparable: First, we need to correct for distance. The standard marathon is roughly 26 miles. The Iditarod is about 1,100 miles. Thus, one Iditarod equals approximately 40 Boston Marathons. Equalizing for this factor, we find the Iditarod death rate corresponds to 2.9 deaths per 40,000 marathon equivalents. This leaves us with a number with which to accurately compare death rates for canine marathoners with death rates for human marathoners. But we are still comparing apples and oranges, or - more accurately - mammalian bipods (people) and mammalian quadripods (dogs). If we want to treat dogs as people, which everyone seems to want to do, we need another correction. We must recognize the average life span of a dog is approximately one-tenth the average lifespan of a human. To make the dogs equal to the people then, we must multiply those 40,000 canine marathon equivalents by the 10 lives the average canine must live to reach the normal lifespan of a human. Doing that, we find the Iditarod death rate drops to 2.9 per 400,000 human marathon equivalents. Over the past decade, somewhere around 120,000 people have run the Boston Marathon. Over that same time, according to race director Jack Fleming, one runner has died. This makes the Boston Marathon death rate 1 per 120,000 or - again making the necessary corrections so as to compare apples with oranges - approximately 3.3 deaths per 400,000. Now, isn't that interesting? All things being equal, the Boston Marathon turns out to be a hair more deadly than the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. I would have loved to discuss this with Saraceno, but he wouldn't talk to me. He basically had two comments. The first was a question: "Is this for a story?" An affirmative answer brought out the tired, old, "I prefer not to comment" dodge. Saraceno wouldn't even hint at where he might have collected his Iditarod information. Saraceno's boss, managing editor for sports Monte Lorell, said, "I know he talked to somebody." After talking to Saraceno, however, Lorell reported, "I don't think he's prepared to share his sources." His sources could be important in that Saraceno also claims Iditarod dogs are "surreptitiously being given tranquilizers or opiates to mask injury or improve performance." Iditarod veterinarians employ a pretty comprehensive program to test for just such drugs. As you read this, they are out on the trail randomly collecting urine samples from dogs for testing. They'd probably like to know if someone has found a way to beat this drug-testing program. Saraceno might be able to shed some light on that, but I wouldn't count on it. Even his boss doubts Saraceno has seen the Iditarod. About all the columnist appears to have seen is a slanted Humane Society press release attacking the race. The press release supplied the numbers used by Saraceno. So score one for some public relations geek for the national animal-rights group. She probably couldn't figure out how to put a harness on a sled dog, but she did a great job of harnessing up a columnist for USA Today and taking him for a ride. * Craig Medred is the Daily News outdoors editor
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