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Scientists are going to discover many subtle genetic factors in the makeup of human beings. . . . Once we can say that there are differences between people that are easily demonstrable at the genetic level, then society will have to come to grips with understanding diversity-and we are not prepared for that.

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A previous study reported that in a data set of recreational boating fatalities 30% of the victims had blood alcohol concentrations above .10% by volume. These data alone did not permit estimation of increased risk of fatality due to intoxication because the prevalence of intoxication among recreational boat operators was unknown. The current study involved interviewing and breath testing recreational boat operators at several boat ramps and marinas in California in order to obtain the "exposure" data needed to estimate the increased risk of fatality associated with intoxication. A large percentage of those people who were approached willingly agreed to the interview and to the breath test. Combining the data from this exposure sample and the fatality data from the previous study enabled computation of a relative risk estimate. The best estimate of relative risk resulting from this research is 10.65, that is, boat operators with a blood alcohol concentration above .10% are estimated to be 10.65 times as likely to be killed in a boating accident than boat operators with zero blood alcohol concentration. A 95% lower confidence bound on this estimate is 4.74. Several possible sources of bias and their effects on the relative risk estimate are considered.

No abstract