Study on Left-Handers

In response to “Left-Handers Die Younger, Study Finds” (by Thomas H. Maugh II, front page, April 4):

Another great service has been performed by The Times. I now know that my particular minority, sinister though it may be, is subject to more accidents and early death caused by numerous problems--neurological and immunological defects, birth trauma and disturbance of brain development.

And these problems lead to additional problems such as neuroticism, allergies, insomnia, learning disorders, etc., ad nauseam . The final blow of this article was to credit a UCLA neuroshrink with saying lefties are also of low intelligence.

Not only have you denigrated a large segment of the populace, you’ve possibly caused our insurance rates to increase based on this skewed data. I know little of statistics, but believe a sample in which response was admittedly less than 50% of the total was anything but random or statistically sound.

Also, as President George Bush would undoubtedly agree, most of the smartest people I have ever known have been left-handed.

Never mind, though. I’m sure I won’t live long enough to read either a retraction or an apology.

R.M. JONES

Corona