Statistics: New Zealand Mattress-Wrapping Campaign

In 2002 a German environmental medicine practitioner, Dr. Hannes Kapuste, published the statistical results of the New Zealand mattress-wrapping campaign in a peer-reviewed journal:

Giftige Gase im Kinderbett (Toxic Gases in Infants' Beds), Zeitschrift fuer Umweltmedizin (Journal of Environmental Medicine) 2002;44:18-22.

The "p" factor for the mattress-wrapping intervention was calculated by Dr. Kapuste (in collaboration with the Statistics Department of the University of Munich) as being: p = less than 1.9 x 10-22

It is usual in medical circles to regard a "p" factor of less than 0.01 (10-2) as sound proof of a scientific proposition; and if the "p" is less than 0.001 (10-3), that is regarded as virtually certain proof of the proposition.

The number 1.9 x 10-22 (the "p" for mattress-wrapping) can be written as: 0.000,000,000,000,000,000,000,19

Put another way, the statistical proof that mattress-wrapping prevents crib death (SIDS) is one billion billion times the level of proof which medical researchers generally regard as constituting certain proof of a scientific proposition.

Not surprisingly, therefore, Dr. Kapuste described the toxic gas theory for crib death and mattress-wrapping for crib death prevention as having "overwhelming reliability."