Letters from the Front John Pezaris, Pasadena, California, 22 November 1997. DUST FOR VOMIT Excerpts from the Athens News, 21 September 1997, quoted without permission. Notes within square brackets [like this] are my additions. DIANA DRIVER BURIED AS CROWD RESENTFUL OF PRESS `DECEPTION' By Sara Henley LORIENT (Reuter) - Relatives and friends gathered in a small Roman Catholic church in this western France fishing port yesterday for the funeral of Henri Paul, the driver of the car in which Princess Diana died three weeks ago... The funeral had been delayed by a criminal probe into the crash in central Paris early on August 31 in which Diana's companion, Dodi Al Fayed, also died. The investigation supposedly determined that Paul was driving at high speed and had consumed well in excess of the legal limit of alcohol. No independent autopsy or DNA test has confirmed this... A private aircraft pilot, [Paul] had passed an annual medical test days before his death, without mention of liver problems ``alcoholism'' or ``depression.'' [sic] The only reservation on the certificate was that he had to use glasses for long-distance vision. Okay, so maybe Ms. Henley, the author of this article, isn't quite up on her scientific background, but the factual errors in this excerpt are, well, a little astonishing, especially since one must assume they made it past a bevy of factual verifiers and editors. We'll ignore the also large number of grammatical errors, many of which are not included in the text above. To start, let's take: ``The investigation supposedly determined that Paul was driving at high speed.'' She's reporting as heresy what had already appeared as official pronouncement in the public media. Investigations do not supposedly determine anything; they determine conclusions or do not determine them. At best, this is a poor choice of words here. Perhaps she meant to write ``investigators, in initial public statements, alleged that Paul was driving at high speed.'' Next, let's examine: ``Paul ... had consumed well in excess of the legal limit of alcohol. No independent autopsy ... had confirmed this.'' This is not true: after the initial official report determining excessive blood alcohol levels, two independent tests had been made by the time this article appeared, also confirming the findings. Granted they may not have been full autopsies, but I don't think that was her intent. Finally, let's examine: ``Paul ... had consumed well in excess of the legal limit of alcohol. No ... DNA test has confirmed this.'' Thinking that a DNA test could return results for blood alcohol level is akin to thinking that you could use a butcher's knife to bake a cake: an oven is the tool used to bake a cake, and while both ovens and butcher's knives are used in food preparation, neither can be used when the other is needed. DNA testing tells you about the genetic makeup of the sample under test, it cannot, a priori, give information on blood alcohol level. Unless there is some natural fluke of which I am not aware, an individual's genotype does not change according to blood alcohol concentration. No, Virginia, you can't dust for vomit. - pz. Next Letter, Previous Letter, Start Again Copyright (C) 1997, J. S. Pezaris, All Rights Reserved.