Safety of Minibikes-Reply

In Reply.— Mr Amidon's letter accusesThe Journal(232:55; 58, 1975) of misleading the medical community. Specifically, Mr Amidon writes that it is unfair to apply the number of minibike and motorcycle injuries and deaths in Wilmington, Del, to the country as a whole. However, had the extrapolation been made from statistics taken from areas in California, Texas, or New York, where motorcycle registrations and, presumably, the number of minibikes are highest, the extrapolation might have suggested a worse picture nationally. Mr Amidon also objects to the use of "epidemic" in describing minibike and motorcycle injuries. Perhaps, in a strict, narrow interpretation, 21 cases in Wilmington do not constitute an epidemic, a term the authors used only to emphasize a serious and rapidly growing problem. Nevertheless, in the face of a nationwide accumulation of thousands of areas such as Wilmington, Del, with deaths totaling more than 3,000 and an estimated 350,000