From LAT: X-rays could tell Chinese Olympic gymnasts’ ages, scientists say

This report appeared on the Science & Medicine section of LAT, which I appear to have subscribed. I love avoiding politics but, if sport is separated from politics, I might be allowed to talk about this a little.

The scientists cited in this report argued that ages can be easily pinpointed by forensic radiology:

Bones fuse together according to a well-documented schedule. For girls between the ages of 13 and 17, the best places to look are the knee, wrist, elbow and iliac crest on the pelvis, he said. The younger they are, the more obvious the evidence.

“A Caucasian girl is going to fuse her knee centers at about age 15; they’re going to fuse their iliac crest at about age 16; and part of the elbow will start fusing around 13 or 14,” he said. “That’s the way you do it.”

For the Chinese gymnasts, investigators would have to consult growth tables for Asian girls, Brogdon said.

Although confronted with some opposite opinion by other expert as

One complication with teenage girls is that strenuous exercise can suppress estrogen production, delaying bone development and making them appear to belong to a younger person, said Dr. Vicente Gilsanz, a professor of radiology and pediatrics at USC.

Brogdon still insisted that

But Brogdon said that by comparing multiple bones, “you could come pretty close” to distinguishing a 14-year-old from a 16-year-old.

More evidence can allegedly obtained from modern Odontology:

He [D. Senn] said he can pinpoint ages within 18 months using images of a person’s wisdom teeth, which start forming around age 9 and are not fully developed until around 19. For the Chinese gymnasts, Senn said, he would also look at their second molars, which grow until age 15 or so.

Finally, I think the most spicy sentence in this report is:

“If there is nothing to be afraid of, let their kids be X-rayed,” he said. “It’s almost incriminating if they don’t.”

Let’s reflect this issue with logic. IOC checks the gymnasts’ age by what shown from their passports, so China provided the ‘right’ passport for He Kexin. Therefore one should check the gymnasts’ age by what people can’t provide so easily, which is definitely not their passports, but others for example odontological evidences.

This suggestion should have been sent to IOC, and the latter should have revise its rules in the section of legal age of participants, and check all candidates of gymnastics with their teeth and bones for validity, rather than ages shown on their passports. Imaginably under the new rule some candidates may have been brushed off because of their bone condition even if their passports show 16-above ages.

Therefore China may then have chosen girls with the right teeth and bones instead of passports for a gold medal, if it is teeth and bones that concerns. And maybe another ‘He Kexin’ with perfect odontological condition but shown 14 only according to her passport may have been allowed on the uneven bars. Obviously this sounds more imaginable than feasible.

So why not both passports and bones should be checked together? Because letting the odontological perfect ‘He Kexin’ also be perfect in passport seems much less easier for China.

If China is deemed ‘always lying’, there is no hope that any kind of regulation could help it out of guilty. Sending He Kexin for X-ray study may not help much because the results may still be fabricated or manipulated by China. Even if it is not, new techniques besides forensic radiology/odontology that can ‘pinpoint ages’ within smaller range of error will keep being suggested by scientists like those in this LAT reports. And China should send He Kexin for all these up-coming tests successively. If not, it is still ‘almost incriminating’.

And I’m pretty sure the problem is not with the rule of IOC which is somewhat omissive, but the honesty of a nation which is deemed somewhat lacking. The problem is not whom the gold medal of female uneven bar should belong to – it belongs to China according to IOC and He Kexin’s passport – but whether China have manipulated, if not fabricated, the legal fact of her age, a problem of ethics, and, because of onus probandi and the infinitive suggestion of new sources of evidence possible, a problem that set China in an endless suspect. China may still reserve one of its 51 golds which it wants, but lose the ethical acknowledgment globally, which it wants more.

洛彬矶时报（Los Angeles Times）的科学与医学（Science & Medicine）分版报道科学家称X射线技术可以测出何可欣的岁数。我看了这篇报道，该报道引用了几位科学家的assertion基本上的意思就是采用 牙医和法医学，更具体地说就是“Forensic Radiology”（放射法医学？）。按照这种方法，

Bones fuse together according to a well-documented schedule. For girls between the ages of 13 and 17, the best places to look are the knee, wrist, elbow and iliac crest on the pelvis, he said. The younger they are, the more obvious the evidence.

“A Caucasian girl is going to fuse her knee centers at about age 15; they’re going to fuse their iliac crest at about age 16; and part of the elbow will start fusing around 13 or 14,” he said. “That’s the way you do it.”

For the Chinese gymnasts, investigators would have to consult growth tables for Asian girls, Brogdon said.

可是我们知道，任何测试都存在偏差。引文中的“about”的“around”到底代表了多大的偏差范围？对于Asian girls又有什么不同？如果他需要consult growth tables for Asian girls，那么，如何选择权威的、公认的growth table来评价何可欣这一个体？说到何可欣这一个体，还涉及到个体差异问题。该篇报道也引用了另一个专家对这种判断方法的的质疑：

One complication with teenage girls is that strenuous exercise can suppress estrogen production, delaying bone development and making them appear to belong to a younger person, said Dr. Vicente Gilsanz, a professor of radiology and pediatrics at USC.

但是，之前的那位法医放射学家仍然坚持：

But Brogdon said that by comparing multiple bones, “you could come pretty close” to distinguishing a 14-year-old from a 16-year-old.

另一个声称可以判断年龄的是牙齿。

He said he can pinpoint ages within 18 months using images of a person’s wisdom teeth, which start forming around age 9 and are not fully developed until around 19. For the Chinese gymnasts, Senn said, he would also look at their second molars, which grow until age 15 or so.

这篇报道最扣人心弦的一句话就是：

“If there is nothing to be afraid of, let their kids be X-rayed,” he said. “It’s almost incriminating if they don’t.”

LAT的报道原文地址：http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-gymnasts23-2008aug23,0,6150137.story?track=rss

这里我想分析一下整件事情的逻辑。首先，IOC的规定是年满16岁才能参加比赛。关于这个“年满”如何确定呢？IOC的官方解释是按照户口或户照所 显示。中国内地居民何可欣户口和出生证明显示何可欣为1992年1月1日（真巧啊）生，满16岁。这意味着什么呢？这意味着我们国家发身份证并不做X光检 查，不看你牙齿，也不看你膝盖。只要拿着户口本你是16岁，就要拿身份证。所以，就算测出来何可欣牙齿和膝盖骨都没长起来，IOC也不会判定何可欣违规 的。也就是说，何可欣的真实岁数问题并不存在，存在的只是何可欣的“户口本岁数”问题，只要何可欣户口本上显示是16岁性别为女，那么就算何可欣是长满胡 须的婴儿，甚至是只大猩猩，大象，青蛙，恐龙，也不违规。这是让美国人最为不满的一点。他们认为，中国出了一只体操能拿冠军的青蛙，然后中国为了多一块金 牌，就为这只青蛙找到了父母，出生医院、出生证，户口等等以及编造了一切关于这只青蛙在人类社会中生活了16年的一切法定事实，然后用这只青蛙战胜了美国 人，而IOC又只看户口本，认定这只青蛙、大象、大猩猩，或长满胡须的婴儿为16岁女性中国居民。于是美国人就要制造“真实年龄”问题，只要在生物学上证 明这是一只青蛙，那就等于证明了中国伪造身份。尽管根据IOC的规定，这金牌固然还是归你中国，但你中国就躲不开全世界的谴责了。这种谴责，是让中国有口 说不清的谴责，比那些貌似有理有据的谴责更受本来就敌视中国的人群的欢迎。

回到这篇LAT的报道的逻辑，因为看牙齿和骨头可以精准地判定年龄，所以中国如果不做X射线那就一定“有鬼”。这样的逻辑是无穷无尽的，看头法看指 甲还能看很多地方来判定年龄，中国如果不是一一做完这些，那就仍然“有鬼”。好吧，承认算了：我中国就是提前两年给一对夫妇发了出生证，性别啊名字都定 了，就是为了这对夫妇两年后所产之子——哪怕是只青蛙——能提早两年参加体操比赛为北京奥运多拿一两块金牌。那又咋了？如果是一个如此看重金牌的国家，还 会在意道德上的谴责吗？

UPDATE：我在Nature Network的博客上也发表了一篇文章，大家可以去参考一下：
http://network.nature.com/blogs/user/andrewsun/2008/08/25/from-lat-x-rays-could-tell-chinese-olympic-gymnasts-ages-scientists-say