Radiation biology. Radioecology
ISSN: 0869-8031

Archives → 2019 → Vol. 59, No. 4 → pp. 341-376

Article

Causal Criteria in Medical and Biological Disciplines: History, Essence and Radiation Aspect. Report 2. Henle–Koch Postulates and Criteria for Causality of Non-communicable Pathologies before Hill

Koterov A.N.

A.I. Burnasyan Federal Medical Biophysical Center of Federal Medical Biological Agency, Moscow, Russia

Abstract

Report 2 of the three-part review is devoted to the development of epidemiological criteria for causality of the effect from exposure in the early period. The postulates of Henle–Koch (1877–1893) for infectious pathologies are considered and it has been found that, despite their limitations and incompleteness, which has been indicated for more than 100 years, these postulates continue to be used in one or another modification to date. It is shown that in the 1950s some of the principles of Henle-Koch served as a prototype for developing criteria for causality of chronic pathologies, especially for proving the connection between smoking and lung cancer that was relevant at that time (Yerushalmy J., Palmer C. E., 1959). Data are presented on the development of the principles for establishing the causation of non-infectious and chronic pathologies during the 1950s – early 1960s, that is, prior to the most famous program work of Hill A. B., 1965, which in most cases is considered as pioneer. It is revealed that among nine Hill’s criteria (the strength of association, consistency of association, specificity, temporality, biological gradient, biological plausibility, coherence, experiment and analogy), only the latter, which is rarely used, belongs to this author. All other principles, often in a textual correspondence, although not in a single complex, can be found in the publications of earlier researchers (Dorn H. F., 1953; Hammond E. C., 1955; Sartwell P. E., 1955; Wynder E. L., 1956; Lilienfeld A. M., 1957; Yerushalmy J., Palmer C. E., 1959; Lilienfeld A. M., 1959; Sartwell P. E., 1960; Wynder E. L., Day E., 1961; Bollet A. J., 1964 and the Report of the US Surgeon General on the effects of smoking from 1964). Based on historical reviews by Susser M., 1991 and Blackburn H., Labarthe D., 2012, the issue of non-compliance with copyright priorities is discussed, which is expressed in the fact that no predecessors are mentioned either in A.B. Hill’s publication of 1965, or in the report of the US Surgeon General of 1964, and the remaining explanations do not withstand criticism. The problem of using the causality criteria to prove the truth of associations in radiation epidemiology of the early period is analyzed. In the documents of UN UNSCEAR (1958–2017), no mention was even made of this point until the UNSCEAR-1994 report, UNSCEAR-2006 report (published in 2008) and the two reports of UNSCEAR-2012 (published in 2014 and 2015). Search of this kind in other early sources related to the impact of the radiation factor has also been unsuccessful. Report 2 is a preamble preceding in-depth consideration of the nature, limitations, use and prevalence of the criteria attributed to A.B. Hill, as well as M. Susser’s criteria and the causality postulates of A.S. Evans, in the field of biomedical disciplines of non-radiation and radiation profiles.

Keywords

criteria for causality, postulates of generalist cohort, criteria for causality, the Henle-Koch postulates, criteria for causality of chronic pathologies of the early period, Hill criteria