• Tavarin@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

    but it emphatically does not hold more authority or validity than an in-depth study from the American Veterinary Association

    When a study fails to identify the breed for the vast majority of attacks, then states breed has nothing to do with the attacks, it is an absolute failure of peer review. Also do you not realize journal editors barely read the papers, they get peer reviewers to do it, and shit does get through (source: I’ve edited journals and published and reviewed dozens of papers).

    But let’s dive into the other actual sources.

    Source 1, no breed identification = not applicable.

    Source 2, once again does not include any pitbulls, so does not apply at all. The website is absolutely idiotic to include it. As for pitbull bites being worse, for all bites that required hospital intervention, 50% were by pitbulls, so yeah worse than other breeds:

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5682160/

    here’s another paper showing pitbulls cause more damage with their bites than most breeds, only matched by German Shepherds in severity:

    https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/wk/prs/2020/00000146/00000005/art00076

    Source 3, data only goes up to 1998, and the vast majority of fatalities from a known breed are still caused by pitbulls.

    Source 4, breed identification, not applicable given pits are mixes.

    Source 5, same as source 4.

    Source 6, abstract claims they saw similar aggression between breeds, but the data suggests otherwise. Where 59% of golden retrievers showed no aggression, only 35% of pitbulls showed no aggression. And where only 1.4 percent of retrievers showed significant aggression, 14 percent of pitbulls showed it. So pitbulls are actually more aggressive than golden retrievers. The authors bend over backwards to claim it’s because the owners are more stressed, so the animals get stressed, instead of acknowledging the data shows pits are actually more aggressive. Seems it was written by pit apologists, and not by unbiased observers.

    Source 7, is a study from the UK, where pitbulls are banned, and does not include any data on pitbulls. So as with source 2, it should not be on the site.

    Source 8, includes zero data on pitbulls, but does show bigger dogs have stronger bites. So not exactly in pitbulls favour there.

    Source 9, just a summary of how bites are measured, no mention of pitbulls.

    Source 10, makes no mention of breeds. Breed specific legislation does not mean that breed can’t be found in a region, just that it doesn’t reduce bites. Also ticketing works to reduce dog bites.

    Source 11, dog population and ownership rate was not in any way mentioned. Bites may have gone up simply because there are more dogs being owned during that period. Without that data this paper is useless (and this data was likely intentionally left out to sell a specific narrative).

    Source 12, doesn’t include pitbulls, so again fails to act in their defense in any way.

    So nope, your, and this websites bias, are causing you to massively misread papers and misinterpret their results.